One of the most serious social problems to perplex parliamentarians in the early Hanoverian period was the excessive consumption of gin by the lower classes. Gin drinking was seen as one of the root causes of poverty, crime, idleness, immorality and impiety, and was regarded as a threat to the very...
The committee that investigated the conditions of London main gaols during the 1729 and 1730 sessions was one of the first great ‘social’ inquiries by the House of Commons. The committee’s exposure both of the horrors of the prison underworld and the ill-treatment of debtors by the...
