The Vagrancy Crisis: Criminalising the Poor

Active learning helps students grasp how economic forces and social attitudes shaped vagrancy laws. By handling primary sources, debating motives, and role-playing trials, students move beyond memorising dates to analyzing cause and effect in historical policy.

• Year 10
• History
• 4 activities
• 30 min–45 min

Learning Objectives

1. Analyze primary source documents to identify the social and economic conditions contributing to vagrancy in Early Modern England.
2. Explain the motivations behind the 1547 Vagrancy Act and its impact on the lives of the poor.
3. Evaluate the extent to which fear of social disorder, rather than moral judgment, influenced the criminalization of poverty.
4. Compare the treatment of 'sturdy beggars' with other social groups during the period 1500-1700.

Stations Rotation

⏱ 40 min·Small Groups

Stations Rotation: Vagrancy Sources

Prepare four stations with 1547 Act extracts, beggar ballads, enclosure records, and magistrate reports. Small groups spend 8 minutes at each, noting attitudes toward vagrants and economic links, then share findings in a class carousel.

Prepare & details

Explain why the Elizabethans feared 'sturdy beggars'.

Facilitation Tip: For Station Rotation: Vagrancy Sources, group sources into categories and rotate students every 8–10 minutes to maintain focus and energy.

Setup: Tables/desks arranged in 4-6 distinct stations around room

Materials: Station instruction cards, Different materials per station, Rotation timer

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Role Play

⏱ 35 min·Pairs

Debate Pairs: Fear or Morality

Assign pairs to argue if vagrant punishments arose from fear of rebellion or moral condemnation of idleness. Provide evidence cards; pairs prepare 5 minutes, then debate in a class tournament with peer voting.

Prepare & details

Analyze how economic change led to new definitions of crime.

Facilitation Tip: During Debate Pairs: Fear or Morality, provide a two-minute ‘thinking pause’ before rebuttals to ensure evidence-based responses.

Setup: Open space or rearranged desks for scenario staging

Materials: Character cards with backstory and goals, Scenario briefing sheet

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

Role Play

⏱ 45 min·Small Groups

Role-Play: Vagrant Trial

Form small groups as magistrates, vagrants, and witnesses. Present case based on a primary source scenario; group decides punishment and justifies with historical context, followed by whole-class reflection.

Prepare & details

Evaluate if the treatment of vagrants was based on fear or morality.

Facilitation Tip: In Role-Play: Vagrant Trial, assign roles in advance and give clear time limits for each stage to keep the trial moving efficiently.

Setup: Open space or rearranged desks for scenario staging

Materials: Character cards with backstory and goals, Scenario briefing sheet

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

Role Play

⏱ 30 min·Pairs

Timeline Build: Vagrancy Laws

In pairs, students sequence events like enclosures, 1547 Act, and later Elizabethan laws on cards, adding cause-effect arrows and quotes. Pairs present timelines to class for peer critique.

Prepare & details

Explain why the Elizabethans feared 'sturdy beggars'.

Facilitation Tip: For Timeline Build: Vagrancy Laws, pre-print key dates and events on separate cards so students focus on sequencing rather than handwriting.

Setup: Open space or rearranged desks for scenario staging

Materials: Character cards with backstory and goals, Scenario briefing sheet

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

Teaching This Topic

Start with the economic context—enclosures, inflation, and population growth—before introducing the 1547 Act. Use contrasting primary sources to show how contemporaries justified harsh measures, then step back to ask whether these were responses to real crises or tools of social control. Research suggests students grasp causation better when they first analyse individual cases before generalising patterns.

What to Expect

Students will identify the difference between ‘worthy poor’ and ‘sturdy beggars,’ explain how fear and morality influenced laws, and evaluate the structural causes of poverty. Expect clear distinctions in source analysis and confident participation in debates and trials.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

During Station Rotation: Vagrancy Sources, students may assume all poor people were treated the same.

What to Teach Instead

During Station Rotation: Vagrancy Sources, hand each pair a sorting mat and have them place source cards into two columns: ‘worthy poor’ or ‘sturdy beggars.’ Ask students to defend their choices with textual evidence to uncover nuanced distinctions.

Common Misconception

During Role-Play: Vagrant Trial, students may argue vagrancy arose solely from laziness.

What to Teach Instead

During Role-Play: Vagrant Trial, ask the judge to call for witness testimony on economic pressures like enclosures before deciding guilt. Require each witness to cite at least one structural cause to shift focus from individual character to systemic factors.

Common Misconception

During Debate Pairs: Fear or Morality, students may claim punishments lacked moral justification.

What to Teach Instead

During Debate Pairs: Fear or Morality, provide each pair with a quotation linking idleness to sin. Ask them to integrate this into their argument, then reflect in a one-sentence written response on how morality and fear intertwined in contemporaries’ minds.

Assessment Ideas

Exit Ticket

After Station Rotation: Vagrancy Sources, give students a short quote from a primary source document and ask them to write two sentences explaining what the quote reveals about Elizabethan attitudes towards vagrants and one potential consequence for a ‘sturdy beggar’ mentioned or implied.

Discussion Prompt

After Debate Pairs: Fear or Morality, pose the question: ‘Was the 1547 Vagrancy Act primarily a response to genuine social problems or a manifestation of fear and prejudice?’ Ask students to support their arguments with specific evidence discussed in class, referencing economic changes and social attitudes.

Quick Check

During Timeline Build: Vagrancy Laws, present students with three brief descriptions of individuals from the period and ask them to classify each individual as likely to be considered a ‘sturdy beggar’ or a ‘deserving poor’ based on the criteria learned. Ask them to provide one sentence of justification for each classification.

Extensions & Scaffolding

• Challenge: Ask students to draft a modern-day social media post arguing for or against a vagrancy-style policy, using historical evidence.
• Scaffolding: Provide a partially completed timeline with gaps for students to fill in with key events from the Vagrancy Acts.
• Deeper exploration: Compare vagrancy laws in England to similar measures in another European country using a Venn diagram to highlight shared and divergent motives.

Key Vocabulary

Vagrancy	The state of wandering without a settled home or employment. In Early Modern England, it became increasingly associated with idleness and criminality.
Sturdy Beggar	An able-bodied person who was perceived as choosing to beg rather than work. They were often viewed with suspicion and fear by authorities.
Poor Laws	Legislation enacted to address poverty and vagrancy. Early Modern Poor Laws moved from providing relief to punishing the 'unworthy poor'.
Enclosure Movement	The process of consolidating small landholdings into larger farms, often displacing rural populations and contributing to urban migration and vagrancy.
Sumptuary Laws	Laws that regulated consumption and dress, often reflecting social hierarchies. While not directly about vagrancy, they show the state's interest in controlling social behavior.