The archival work was undertaken by a group of around 100 local historians across the Midlands who were interested in examining the lives of poor people in the nineteenth century. The main source which the following accounts originate from is the huge poor law union correspondence series of records held at The National Archives (TNA) in Kew. The poor law union correspondence rivals, if not eclipses, the Victorian census as the domestic archival nineteenth century tour de force and provides some of the most detailed accounts of the lives of ordinary English and Welsh men, women and children.