The history of poor relief in England and Wales has been well studied, receiving almost continuous academic attention since the early twentieth century: from the Hammonds, Webbs and Dorothy Marshall in the 1910s and 1920s, through Mark Blaug, J.S. Taylor, Peter Dunkley and Michael Rose in the 1960s and 1970s, to Paul Slack, Keith Snell, Steven Hindle, Steven King (and many others) from the 1980s to the present day. For Scotland, the corpus of work is relatively more modest and more recent. Rosalind Mitchison laid the foundations for modern Scottish poor law studies in the 1970s, and her work has subsequently been added to by such scholars as Robert Cage, Ian Levitt, Andrew Blaikie and John Stewart. Irish poor law studies also began modestly and comparatively late. However, they have expanded rapidly since the late twentieth century, with notable contributions by Helen Burke, Virginia Crossman, Peter Gray and, most recently, Mel Cousins.

By contrast with Great Britain and Ireland, the history of poor relief in the offshore Crown Dependencies has been neglected, for none have attracted the attention of academic welfare historians. Nor has much work been produced by local historians. Jersey has been the subject of a 200-page study by a retired local schoolteacher, but there are no comparable surveys of either Guernsey or the Isle of Man. All that exists on the welfare history of both of these islands are one or two articles in local studies journals, and chapters or sections in books on more general subjects.

But perhaps there is good reason for such scant attention. Why, after all, should an island such as Guernsey, measuring just over twenty-four square miles, merit an extended analysis of its welfare arrangements? And could such arrangements hold any interest for readers without local ties? The following paragraphs will propose a justification for the undertaking.

To begin with, despite its small area, Guernsey has supported a disproportionately large population for most of recorded history. In past centuries, this arose partly from the island's climate and fertility, and partly from the trading activities of its capital, St Peter Port. As early as the Iron Age, St Peter Port, a sheltered haven on Guernsey's east coast, offered a useful stopping-off point to vessels sailing up from Biscay into the Channel.