A concise synthesis of past work on a unique and important system of social welfare.

Suffering and Happiness in England 1550-1850 pays tribute to one of the leading historians working on early modern England, Paul Slack, and his work as a histor

Few measures, if any, could claim to have had a greater impact on British society than the poor law. As a comprehensive system of relieving those in need, the p

Over the last twenty years more and more historians of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have turned their eyes away from the records of central adm

Explaining the curious legal doctrine of "coverture," William Blackstone famously declared that "by marriage, husband and wife are one person at law." This "cov