In this illustrated talk historian Richard Churchley paints a picture of the way in which the poor were treated by the authorities from Elizabethan times through to the twentieth century. To explain the poor laws he uses many local examples and quotations from Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy. Anyone who has studied their own family history is likely to have come across relatives who ended up in the workhouse but this will be equally fascinating to all.

Richard Churchley is an experienced local historian, specialising in areas of Worcestershire, Warwickshire and North Gloucestershire. His first degree was in German but he subsequently gained an MA in English Local History and a PhD for his study of changing occupational structure in the rural area around Redditch and Alcester, the area where he has lived for more than 40 years.