In this book Samantha Williams examines illegitimacy, unmarried parenthood and the old and new poor laws in a period of rising illegitimacy and poor relief expenditure. In doing so, she explores the experience of being an unmarried mother from courtship and conception, through the discovery of pregnancy, and the birth of the child in lodgings or one of the new parish workhouses. Although fathers were generally held to be financially responsible for their illegitimate children, the recovery of these costs was particularly low in London, leaving the parish ratepayers to meet the cost. Unmarried parenthood was associated with shame and men and women could also be subject to punishment, although this was generally infrequent in the capital. Illegitimacy and the poor law were interdependent and this book charts the experience of unmarried motherhood and the making of metropolitan bastardy.

In this book Samantha Williams examines illegitimacy, unmarried parenthood and the old and new poor laws in a period of rising illegitimacy and poor relief expenditure. In doing so, she explores the experience of being an unmarried mother from courtship and conception, through the discovery of pregnancy, and the birth of the child in lodgings or one of the new parish workhouses. Although fathers were generally held to be financially responsible for their illegitimate children, the recovery of these costs was particularly low in London, leaving the parish ratepayers to meet the cost. Unmarried parenthood was associated with shame and men and women could also be subject to punishment, although this was generally infrequent in the capital. Illegitimacy and the poor law were interdependent and this book charts the experience of unmarried motherhood and the making of metropolitan bastardy.

Examination of welfare during the last years of the Poor Law, bringing out the impact of poverty on particular sections of society - the lone mother and the elderly. Social welfare, increasingly extensive during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was by the first third of the nineteenth under considerable, and growing, pressure, during a "crisis" period when levels of poverty soared. This book examines the poor and their families during these final decades of the old Poor Law. It takes as a case study the lived experience of poor families in two Bedfordshire communities, Campton and Shefford, and contrasts it with the perspectives of other participants in parish politics, from the magistracy to the vestry, and from overseers to village ratepayers. It explores the problem of rising unemployment, the provision of parish make-work schemes,charitable provision and the wider makeshift economy, together with the attitudes of the ratepayers. That gender and life-cycle were crucial features of poverty is demonstrated: the lone mother and her dependent children and the elderly dominated the relief rolls. Poor relief might have been relatively generous but it was not pervasive - child allowances, in particular, were restricted in duration and value - and it by no means approximated to the income of other labouring families. Poor families must either have had access to additional resources, or led meagre lives. Samantha Williams is a university lecturer in local and regional history at the Institute of ContinuingEducation, Cambridge, and a Bye-Fellow in History, Girton College, Cambridge.

A charming keepsake book to be completed together.

A charming keepsake book to be completed together.

A story of strength, friendship and triumph Physical Challenges... Denise Wilson, a stroke survivor, has always been tall for her age. Too tall in fact. At nine she was a giraffe among cats. All of her friends were shorter than her and she could even see the top of most of the guys' heads. But, that didn't stop her from falling for Taylor Young. In the fourth grade the Puerto Rican heartthrob had taken her breath away every time he looked at her. However, when her father gets a job in Germany and they move halfway around the world to strange people and even stranger places; all seems lost. Emotional Challenges... Now, it's her eighth grade year and she is back in North Carolina--to old friends, old places and an old crush. But, things have changed in a major way. More students are looking her eye-to-eye now, but there are other unexpected situations for Denise and her friends at Pramar Academy. The pressures of her last year in middle school are piling up. The cruel trio is meaner than ever and if she is not careful everything she is afraid of happening... will happen. Note: A book for young adults written by a young adult.