The authorities at Speenhamland approved a means-tested sliding-scale of wage supplements in order to mitigate the worst effects of rural poverty.
The Speenhamland system appears to have reached its height during the Napoleonic Wars, when it was a means of allaying dangerous discontent amongst a growing rural proletariat faced by soaring food prices, and to have died out in the post-war period, except in a few parishes [REF].