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GCSE History · key term
An Elizabethan label for people considered capable of working but believed to be unwilling to do so.
Used by AQA, Edexcel and OCR
Paper 2
The Elizabethan label for people judged capable of working but unwilling to do so; it could unfairly include people who could not find employment.
Revise: The PoorElizabethans commonly distinguished between the deserving poor and the idle poor. Elderly people and those unable to work because of illness or disability were usually considered deserving. Helping them was widely understood as a Christian duty.
Paper 2
The Elizabethan label for able-bodied people without work, whom many assumed were lazy even when jobs were unavailable.
Paper 1
Revise: PovertyThe undeserving or idle poor were people believed to be fit enough to work but unwilling to do so. Terms such as ‘sturdy beggars’ reflected this suspicion. These were judgements made by Elizabethans, not reliable descriptions of everyone who begged.
Treat ‘idle poor’ as an Elizabethan judgement, not proof that unemployed people were lazy. Distinguish inability to find work from unwillingness to work.
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