Alannah Tomkins is Lecturer in History at the University of Keele
Tomkins presents the conditions under which the poor lived, drawing on life in the workhouse, traditional poor relief such as lodging in poorhouses, health care, and schools for the poor. The section on credit and pawn broking among those in distress is especially significant because this is a field that has hardly been researched so far, and it demonstrates the flexibility of the poor in their struggle against want. -- Anke Sczesny. German Historical Institute London