One of the earliest academic attacks on outdoor relief was Joseph Townsend’s 1786 article “Dissertation on the Poor Laws” which criticized the Speenhamland system.
Another early revisionist analysis occurs in the work of Karl Polanyi who argues in The Great Transformation that the Speenhamland system was introduced to reinforce the “paternalistic system of labour organisation” The revisionist analysis of the Poor Law was first presented by Mark Blaug who in 1963 published the paper “The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the making of the New”.
[2] Blaug's analysis rejects the notion that outdoor relief had a disastrous effect on the rural labour market.
The work of Daniel Baugh, who has analysed poor relief in Essex, Sussex and Kent between 1790 and 1834, extends Blaug’s critique.
4. c. 45) were able to exploit the working classes by legislation which lowered workhouse conditions and made it more difficult to claim poor relief.