The Enactment, Adoption, and Impact of Gilbert’s Act of 1782

This paper aims to shed new light on Gilbert’s Act, which has been neglected in exsiting studies. The influence of Gilbert’s Act has long been underestimated due to its nature as a permissive act without coercive force. However, the reform of Thomas Gilbert, who drafted this act, were not merely intended to create a humanitarian relief system. He sought a comprehensive overhaul of the entire poor relief system. Yet, after the failure of his first legislative attempt in 1765, his reform gradually took a more moderate direction. Gilbert’s Act, enacted in 1782, not only represented a significant retreat from the original plan but also failed to mandate the reform nationwide, instead granting local governments the authority to implement the reform. Despite these limits, the extent to which Gilbert’s Act was adopted was far more widespread than what previous research has revealed. In Hampshire, about 40 parishes adopted Gilbert’s Act. Moreover, the motivations for its adoption were not limited to humanitarian concerns, but diverse, including the reduction of poor relief costs and the encouragement of labor among the poor. Remarkably, Gilbert’s Act continued to persist even after the 1834 New Poor Law, which brought a major overhaul to the poor relief system, and in some areas, it remained firmly upheld.