- Petty Tyranny and Oppression: Workhouse Lives Under the Long Nineteenth-Century Poor Laws, by Paul Carter and Steven King, Published May 2026
- Workhouse Lives: Staffing institutions under the Old and New Poor Laws. Edited by Steven King and Samantha A. Shave, Published in June 2026
I asked ChatGPT to compare them. It commented “The two books complement each other” and “I would think of them almost as two cameras pointed at the same institution.”
| Petty Tyranny and Oppression | Workhouse Lives | |
|---|---|---|
| Main subject | Paupers/inmates | Staff |
| Main question | How was power experienced? | Who exercised it, and how? |
| Perspective | Bottom-up | Institutional/occupational |
| Period | Late 18th century–c.1914 | Old and New Poor Laws |
| Geography | England and Wales | England and Wales |
| Main theme | Power, oppression, resistance | Work, careers, personality, authority |
| Useful for genealogy | Understanding an ancestor’s experience | Identifying and understanding the people administering it |
| Approach | Single sustained argument | Multiple specialist contributors |
They both look very interesting…though also distressing for those of us who had ancestors who spent time in the poorhouse…