Tocqueville first became sensitized to the problem of poverty through his journey to England in 1833. At that time, a radical reform of the “Poor Law” was being debated in Great Britain. The new Poor Law Amendment Act was intended to replace a welfare system that dated back to 1601 with a modern law appropriate to current challenges (Drolet 2003, 36–53, 95–114). When Tocqueville revisited England in 1835, he familiarized himself with the effects of the new legislation and was simultaneously shocked by the extent of poverty in the northwest of the country (OC V, 2, 79−82). Later that same year he published his first Mémoire sur le paupérisme. In 1837, he began work on a second Mémoire, which he did not finish and which was not published during his lifetime. In both texts, Tocqueville analyzed the uncertain social situation of industrial workers and explored possible alternatives to address the growing poverty, given the insufficiency of private charity.