High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Speenhamland system was an amendment to the old Poor Law or Elizabethan Poor Law, created as an indirect result of Britain's involvements in the French Wars (1793–1815). The system was named after a 1795 meeting at the Pelican Inn in Speenhamland, Berkshire where a number of local magistrates devised the system as a means to alleviate the distress caused by high grain prices. The increase in the price of grain most probably occurred as a result of a poor harvest in the years 1795–96, though at the time this was subject to great debate. Many blamed middlemen and hoarders as the ultimate architects of the shortage. The authorities in Speenhamland approved a means-tested sliding-scale of wage supplements in order to mitigate the worst effects of rural poverty.

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