A Social Question before the Social Question: Addressing Poverty in Enlightenment Europe

Conference 

22-23 October 2026 

Somerville College, Oxford (Margaret Thatcher Centre) 

Convenors: Damiano Bardelli (Voltaire Foundation, Oxford) and Matilde Cazzola (DiSCi, Bologna and mpilhlt), with Joanna Innes (Faculty of History Oxford) 

THURSDAY, 22 October 

13:30 Welcome and Introduction 

14:00 Session 1 – Rural Poverty 

Joanna Innes (University of Oxford): The Invention of Rural Poverty in England, from 1760 

Aris Della Fontana (Università della Svizzera italiana): ‘Combien de pauvres elle sauveroit de l’indigence?’: Small-Scale Agriculture as an Antidote to Rural Poverty in Late Eighteenth-Century France –  

15:20 Session 2 – Poverty and Society 

Nicholas O’Neill (Arizona State University): Laissez Faire, Laissez Manger: The Economics of Boisguilbert’s Antipoverty 

Masano Yamashita (University of Colorado Boulder): Accidental Poverty and Merit 

Jacopo Bonasera (Gerda Henkel Stiftung): Population, Luxury and Poverty: The Political Economy of James Steuart 

Marek Maj (European University Institute): Making the Poor ‘Useful’ in Late Eighteenth-Century Cracow 

FRIDAY, 23 October 

9:00 Session 3 – In the Parish 

Gabi Wüthrich (Universität Zürich): Poor and Power in the Parish: Bargaining for a Collective Poor Relief Strategy during the 1771 Famine 

Rūta Miškinytė (Vilnius University): Between Intentions and Practice: Dealing with Poverty in a Rural Lithuanian Parish 

Ellen Gallimore (University of York): Memories of the Medieval Church: Critiques of Parish Poor Relief and Tithe Reform in Early-Nineteenth-Century England 

11:00 Session 4 – Between Assistance and Confinement 

Julie Marfany (Durham University): ‘Since it is the Spirit of the Present Government to Favour Hospitals and Workhouses’: Conflicts over Poor Relief in Eighteenth-Century Spain 

Nathalie Dahn-Singh (Université de Lausanne): Materiality and the Confinement of the Poor in Eighteenth-Century Switzerland 

Adrien Schwartz (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): A Social Problem and a Financial Conundrum: Funding the Care of Foundlings in Eighteenth-Century France 

13:30 Session 5 – Reforming Poor Relief 

Laurence Fontaine (EHESS): Agreements and Disagreements among Reformist Elites in Addressing Poverty: The 1777 Châlons Competition on ‘How to Eradicate Begging by Making Beggars Useful to the State without Making them Unhappy’ 

Francesca Ferrando (Università di Verona): Reforming Poor Relief in Eighteenth-Century Genoa: Ideas, Practices and Female Benefaction 

Damiano Bardelli (University of Oxford): Work and Education: Reforming Poor Relief in Late Eighteenth-Century Switzerland 

Matilde Cazzola (Università di Bologna): Claiming Philanthropy from Below: British Radicalism and the Ragged-Trousered Lovers of Mankind 

16:00 Concluding discussion 

Supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Max Planck Institute, and the Voltaire Foundation. 

Photo credits: Francisco Goya, Alegoría de la Industria, tempera on canvas, ø 227 cm, c. 1805 (detail). © Museo del Prado, Madrid.