Brian Lancaster's rich and detailed study of the early decades of New Poor Law administration in two Surrey Unions, rural Godstone, and rapidly urbanizing Croydon, demonstrates the author's admirable affinity with the localities and their historical actors. The work thoroughly fulfils the objectives of the society under whose auspices it is published, and both promotes and benefits from what Kate Tiller has identified as ‘the unique familiarity and knowledge that exists locally’ at the interface of ‘“local” local history and “academic” local history’. Although, given the context of its publication, it is perhaps aimed more at a locally engaged lay readership, it offers a fascinating insight into the minutiae of poor relief policy and administration for the general interested reader, and, contextualized, is a valuable resource for the historian of poverty and welfare.

Along with journalistic sources, minutes of the two boards of guardians have been collated with Poor Law correspondence held at the National Archives in the MH12 series – as Paul Carter notes: ‘a unique archive for local researchers interested in the Victorian poor’. The author's approach is, self-admittedly, primarily (but not exclusively) a ‘top down’ one, concentrating on the experiences and policies of Poor Law officials in all their diversity. Short thematic sections on aspects of local policy and administration, for example workhouses, medical officers, the treatment of vagrants and the collection of poor rates, are interspersed with narrative vignettes, ‘windows onto the poor law’, brief case-studies of, in the main, officials who came into conflict with the Poor Law Commission or Board. The case of Joseph Walker, a recurring figure across several narratives, demonstrates this. A somewhat obnoxious and abusive character, Walker was a relieving officer in Croydon during the late 1850s and early 1860s. His withholding of relief in urgent cases, even when it had been sanctioned by the board of guardians, and refusal to allow applicants access to the guardians, brought him to the attention of a local worthy who reported his actions (and inactions) to the Poor Law Board. At the enquiry in 1862, reports of which are to be found in MH12/12174, evidence was given by the poor themselves, providing a particularly valuable insight into the working, economic and social conditions of the poor, and their interaction with the Poor Law. It reveals the nature of the relief they might expect, often given in foodstuffs – ‘loaves and mutton’, via ‘diet tickets’ and the conditions under which they might expect it. For example, Elizabeth Smith, whose husband, father of their 11 children, earned 10s a week odd-jobbing and selling watercress. The Smith family, with five children still at home, received relief of 2s, two pounds of mutton and three loaves for the first fortnight when Elizabeth's husband could not work because of injury. It is in such passages that the author's presentation of historical evidence is of especially significant value, and indeed might contribute to addressing calls, as identified by Steven King, for a synthesis of local research to understand the workings and strategies of the New Poor Law, and its varying regional perspectives.

Lancaster acknowledges the Malthusian premise and Whiggish rhetoric which drove the new law. He is in agreement with its twin genesis of economic self-interest and an imposed moralism: as Lynn Hollen Lees argues: ‘a middle- and upper-class public determined to combat the “pauperization” of the social body, at the same time as they defended their pocketbooks’. He does not, however, necessarily agree with the conclusion that the welfare system became harsher after the Amendment Act: sitting cautiously in the optimistic camp, he concludes, with some qualification, that within the spatial and temporal boundaries of his investigation, ‘the new poor law…ensured some improvements on the old’. The author uncovers considerable differences in the administration of relief between the rural union and the more urban one. Godstone had a slower rate of change and, one might argue, greater stability. There was a growing professionalization of relief provision in the Croydon Union, with a transport infrastructure which gave increasing accessibility to the Metropolis, and a population whose membership included ‘people with professional skills lacking in…the Godstone Union’, and who might undertake roles such as treasurer, medical officer or clerk. Furthermore, guardians in the increasingly urban centres of Croydon and Mitcham could always out-vote the rural members of the union. Such professionalization was far less pronounced in Godstone: indeed, there, the more traditional role of the overseer retained prominence. Lancaster finds some continuity in the interface between the parish and union systems: although ‘sidelined’ by the centralized supervision of the New Poor Law, very localized government in its traditional guise, the parish vestry, was not entirely ‘strangled’. Administration and its supervision was a ‘two-way process’ between local and central government, allowing for some flexibility in policy.

However, in concentrating on the analysis and interpretation of his sources, the author seldom attempts to relate his findings to broader debates within the extensive historiography of poverty and poor relief, or indeed with the workings of the New Poor Law in its urban settings – one thinks of the collection of essays, The Poor and the City: The English Poor Law in its Urban Context, 1834–1915 (1985), edited by Michael Rose, for example. Nonetheless, the impressive research undertaken in the production of this study is an exemplar of, in Glanmor Williams' words, the ‘diligence and devotion [that] can put professionals to shame’ and in so doing foregrounds the ‘absolute need for regular and intimate communication’ between the amateur and professional historian.