We will investigate-1. The different types of poverty.2. The attitude of the Government

in the 19th & early 20th Century.

We can divide poverty into two different types:

• Primary Poverty:• This is when people do not have the basic

necessities of life. • This means they do not have things like food,

housing and clothes because they have not earned enough money to buy these things.

• People living like this are often said to be living 'below the poverty line'.

• Secondary Poverty:• This is when people earn enough money to

have the basic necessities. • However, they spend the money unwisely so

they do not have those basic things.

Government attitudes

The Role of Government:• In the early 19th century

government was very much smaller than it is now. It was believed that government should only have a limited role in raising taxes and defending the realm.

• Governments operated a policy of 'Laissez Faire' which means 'leave alone'. This summed up how government and ordinary people saw the role of government. They believed that government should stay out of the everyday lives of the people.

Homeless woman in London, 1876-7

Poverty and the British people

• The educated and wealthier people who lived in Britain in 1890 may have been interested in poverty, but they had no clear idea as to the extent of poverty.

• For the Victorian British however the reasons for poverty were very clear. It was a person's own doing that led them into poverty.

Do these children deserve to be poor?