Key Dates in Gt Britain

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Key dates in Poor Law and Relief

Great Britain 1300 - 1700

1344 Royal Ordinance decreed that lepers should leave the City of London and "betake themselves to places in the country".
1388 The Statute of Cambridge ("Poor Law") concerning Labourers, Servants and Beggars strengthened the powers of the justices of the peace; distinguished between "sturdy beggars" capable of work and "impotent beggars" incapacitated by age or infirmity; forbade servants to move out of their "hundred" without legal authority; and made each "hundred" responsible for housing and keeping its own paupers, but made no special provision for maintaining the sick poor. This statute pointed the way to the Tudor Poor Laws, but for the next two centuries the aged and infirm depended upon charity for survival.
The first English Sanitary Act dealt with offal and slaughter houses; prohibited the casting of animal filth and refuse into rivers or ditches, and "corrupting of the Air"
.1389 Justices of the peace given powers to fix the wages of labourers.
1391 The second Statute of Mortmain ordered that upon the appropriation of a benefice a proportion of its fruits should be reserved for distribution among the poor of the parish.
1494 Vagabonds and Beggars Act. “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”. Beggars who were too infirm to work were to remain in their Hundred and be permitted to beg.
1530-40 Suppression of the monasteries. Until this time the almshouses and hospitals of the Church dispensed charity to those who could not benefit from the help given by the craft guilds to their sick or aged members. When the State was forced to intervene, the parishes under the supervision of the justices of peace (in turn under the surveillance of the Privy Council) were made the agencies for the collection of voluntary (at first) alms and their distribution. Later, London levied the first compulsory poor rate and organised a system for poor relief through four institutions - Christ’s Hospital for children (1552), St Bartholomew’s and St Thomas Hospitals for the sick and Bridewell for the able-bodied destitute (1553). Other cities developed their own local schemes.
Poor Law Act (22 HenVIII, c.1 2) directed “how aged, poor, and impotent Persons, compelled to live by Alms, shall be ordered, and how Vagabonds and Beggars shall be punished". The former were to be licensed to beg (see 1531), the latter if found begging were to be whipped or put in the stocks for three days and nights with bread and water only and then to return to their birth-place and put to labour
.1531Justices of the peace were ordered to issue a licence to beg to the infirm poor, thus making begging by the sturdy an offence.
1535 (Poor Law) Act required that “all Governors of Shires, Cities, Towns, Hundreds, Hamlets and Parishes shall find and keep every aged, poor and impotent Person, which was born or dwelt three years within the same limit, by way of voluntary and charitable Alms ... for as none of them shall be compelled to go openly in begging. And also shall compel every sturdy Vagabond to be kept in continual labour ... “and gave powers to apprentice children aged between 5 and 13. Voluntary contributions for the relief of the poor were to be collected by the justices of the peace and churchwardens.
1547 Branding and slavery imposed as the punishment for persistent vagrancy, and “foolish pity and mercy” for vagrants condemned.
1552 Parishes were ordered to register their poor; onus for the relief of the poor was placed on parish councils; and the parson was to exhort his parishioners to show charity to their neighbours. Each parish, Parliament suggested, should appoint two collectors of alms to assist the churchwardens after service on Trinity Sunday to “gently ask and demand of every man or woman what they of their charity will be contented to give weekly towards the relief of the poor”. The collectors had to receive the weekly payments and distribute the money the registered poor of the parish.
1562 (Poor Law) Act required that charity for the relief of the poor should be collected weekly by assigned collectors and distributed to the poor; those who refused to give voluntarily may be taxed by justices of the peace, and if still refusing to pay may be imprisoned.
1572 (Poor Law) Act made each parish responsible to provide for its own aged, impotent and sick poor; appointed “overseers” of the poor and empowered them to assess the parish; introduced compulsory poor rate; and made refusal to work for lawful wages or work provided by the overseer punishable offences.
1574 Scottish Poor Law Act.
1576(Poor Law) Act authorised counties to establish houses of correction for vagrants; and set out the “Punishment of the Mother and reputed Father of a *******”.
1586 Severe famine.
1593 An Act for the Necessary Relief of Soldiers and Mariners stated that “Every parish shall be charged with a sum weekly towards the relief of sick hurt, maimed soldiers and mariners”. Amending acts raising the amounts to be collected were passed in 1597 and 1601.
1594-98 Intermittent famines, some associated with typhus and dysentery (“bloody flux”). “People were starving and dying in our streets and in our fields for lack of bread”.
1597Poor Law Act consolidated and extended previous acts and provided the first complete code of poor relief. Re-enacted the requirements for raising local poor rates, replacing voluntary giving by taxation decided by the overseers, and required the local justices of the peace to appoint, annually, and to supervise “Overseers of the Poor” for the purpose of setting to work those in need, apprenticing children, and providing “the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind and such other being poor and not able to work”. The scheme was centrally supervised by the Privy Council to whom the justices had to report and send returns. The act affirmed the mutual liability of parents and children to support each other.
Act for Erecting Hospitals, or Abiding and Working Houses for the Poor permitted the founding and erecting of hospitals by charitable gifts provided that they be endowed for ever with sufficient means for an adequate yearly income.
1601 Poor Law Act consolidated and replaced all earlier acts, but did not innovate. This act remained the basis on which the poor were helped until 1834. Although administration was sometimes lax and sometimes heartless, it was often well intentioned and recognised that poverty was a problem requiring social action. The parish was the unit of administration which raised difficulties in large urban areas and in the scattered hamlets in the north and west.
1662 Relief of the Poor (Settlement) Act empowered churchwardens and overseers, with the approval of the justices of the peace, to remove any stranger likely to require relief within forty days of his arrival in their parish, unless the stranger occupied house and lands worth at least £10 a year or could provide satisfactory security to ensure that he would never require help from the poor rates. The act also provided that where a parish was exceptionally large, each township within it should be responsible for its own poor. This act regularised procedures and actions already being taken in many areas. The act arose in part because of the considerable movement of population due to the Civil War.
1685Poor Law Act continued the 1662 act, but defined the period of 40 days residence as starting from the date that the incomer gave written notice of arrival to one of the churchwardens or overseers.
1689 Dr Hugh Chamberlen (court physician and accoucheur) submitted a “Proposal for the Better Securing of Health” suggesting that medical treatment should be available to “all sick, poor or rich ... for a small yearly certain sum assessed upon each house”, and, “that the laws already in being may be revised, which provide against the sale of unwholesome food; that bread may be well baked; beer well brewed, and houses and streets well cleaned from dirt and filth; all these being common causes of diseases and death”.
1691 Poor Law Act introduced the registration of parishioners in receipt of poor relief
.1696 Gregory King (statistician) calculated that 63 per cent of the population had incomes below the poverty level which he put at £40 p.a.; “cottagers and paupers” had only £6 l0s.
1697 Poor Law Act introduced badges to be worn by paupers.
First dispensary opened in the premises of the Royal College of Physicians in Warwick Lane, where the poor were oven free consultation and advice, and prescribed drugs dispensed from a special stock. Branches were opened later in other parts of the City. Closed in 1725.
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731, journalist and novelist) proposed that the insurance principle should be applied to the social problems of the poor, including disability pensions and medical and institutional care.