The modern British welfare state can trace its roots back to the reign of Elizabeth I. But how did the state assist the poor in the Tudor period compared to now? Was the Victorian workhouse all that Dickens cracked it up to be? Where did our NHS come from?

In this episode, Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, interviews Dr Gillian Lamb, Stipendiary Lecturer in History at Somerville College, about the history of poor relief in Britain from the sixteenth century to today.