Origins of the Old Poor Law
The origins of parochial poor relief extend back at least as far as the fifteenth century. With the decline of the monasteries, and their dissolution in 1536, together with the breakdown of the medieval social structure, charity for the poor gradually moved from its traditional voluntary framework to become a compulsory tax administered at the parish level.
Legislation prior to this point largely dealt with beggars and vagabonds. In the aftermath of the Black Death (1348-9) labour was in short supply and wages rose steeply. To try and keep this in check, several Acts were passed aimed at forcing all able-bodied men to work and keep wages at their old levels. These measures led to labourers roaming around the country looking for an area where the wages were high and where the labour laws not too strictly enforced. Some took to begging under the pretence of being ill or crippled. In 1349, the Ordinance of Labourers (36 Edw.III c.8) prohibited private individuals from giving relief to able-bodied beggars.
In 1388, the Statute of Cambridge (12 Rich.II c.7) introduced regulations restricting the movements of all labourers and beggars. Each county "Hundred" became responsible for relieving its own "impotent poor" — those who, because of age or infirmity, were incapable of work. Servants wishing to move out of their own Hundred needed a letter of authority from the "good man of the Hundred" — the local Justice of the Peace — or risked being put in the stocks. Following this Act, beggars could pretend neither to be labourers (who needed permission to wander), nor to be invalids (who were also forbidden to wander). The 1388 Act is often regarded as the first English poor law. However, lack of enforcement limited its impact and effect.
Further legislation followed over the next two centuries. In 1494, the Vagabonds and Beggars Act (11 Henry VII c.2) determined that: "Vagabonds, idle and suspected persons shall be set in the stocks for three days and three nights and have none other sustenance but bread and water and then shall be put out of Town. Every beggar suitable to work shall resort to the Hundred where he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and there remain upon the pain aforesaid." Worse was to come — the 1547 Statute of Legal Settlement (1 Edw. VI. c.3) enacted that a sturdy beggar could be branded or made a slave for two years (or for life if he absconded). The Act condemned "...foolish pity and mercy" for vagrants. On a more positive note, cottages were to be erected for the impotent poor, and they were to be relieved or cured.
The seeds of the future direction of the poor laws in a short-lived Act of 1536 which required Churchwardens in each parish to collect voluntary alms in a 'common box' to provide handouts for those who could not work. At the same time, the idle and the able-bodied poor were obliged to perform labour, with punishment for those who refused. The Act also placed a prohibition on begging and on unofficial almsgiving. In the following decades, compulsory poor-taxes were established in London, Cambridge, Colchester, Ipswich, Norwich, and York. This principle was adopted nationally in 1572 with the introduction of a local property tax, the poor rate, which was assessed by local Justices of the Peace and administered by parish overseers. The money raised was to be used to relieve 'aged, poor, impotent, and decayed persons'.
An Act of 1564 aimed to suppress the 'roaming beggar' by empowering parish officers to 'appoint meet and convenient places for the habitations and abidings' of such classes — one of the first references to what was subsequently to evolve into the workhouse. This was followed in 1576 by an Act For Setting the Poor on Work which provided that stocks of materials such as wool, hemp, and flax should be provided and premises hired in which to employ the able-bodied poor.
In 1597, an Act For the Relief of the Poor (39 Eliz. c.3) required every parish to appoint Overseers of the Poor whose responsibility it was to find work for the unemployed and to set up parish-houses for those incapable of supporting themselves.
.Bibliography
- Slack, Paul. The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, 1990, CUP.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice English Poor Law History, 1927, Longmans, Green & Co., London.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice English Poor Law Policy, 1910, Longmans, Green & Co., London.
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