Welfare and Poor Law
The following source list was originally available only on paper in one of the West Yorkshire Archive Service offices. It may have been compiled many years ago and could be out of date. It was designed to act as a signpost to records of interest on a particular historical subject, but may relate only to one West Yorkshire district, or be an incomplete list of sources available. Please feel free to add or update with any additional information. |
Population growth in an undeveloped and slow-growing economy creates unemployment and vagrancy, prompting official worries about potential social unrest. The Poor Law was always closely connected with policing, and the need to maintain law and order.
The basic principles of the Poor Law were established before the Reformation:
- A distinction between those capable and incapable of work.
- Attempts to settle the poor in a fixed place. If they could not be maintained by charitable funds where they were, they should be sent back to their birthplace.
- Duty of care for the poor lay with the church and monastic institutions.
The dissolution of the monasteries, coupled with population growth during the 16th century, made the problem ever more pressing. The office of overseer of the poor was first created in 1572, and became compulsory for each parish in 1598.
The Old Poor Law, 1601-1834
The existing piecemeal laws were consolidated in 1601 into a system generally known as the ‘Old Poor Law’.
The main objectives of the 1601 Act were:
- The establishment of the parish as the administrative unit responsible for poor relief, with churchwardens or parish overseers collecting poor-rates and allocating relief.
- The provision of materials such as flax, hemp and wool to provide work for the able-bodied poor.
- The setting to work and apprenticeship of children.
- The relief of the 'impotent' poor — the old, the blind, the lame, and so on. This could include the provision of 'houses of dwelling' — almshouses or poorhouses rather than workhouses.
Churchwardens and overseers (usually 4) were elected annually in each parish, with a duty to provide relief and set the poor to work. The overseers would collect and distribute a parish poor rate, the whole system being supervised by local justices of the peace. The system was initially based upon relieving the poor in their own homes, with a complicated set of rules governing settlement and the entitlement to relief only in a particular parish.
The 1662 Settlement Act allowed for the removal from a parish (generally back to their parish of birth) of newcomers whom local justices deemed "likely to be chargeable" to the parish poor rates. Settlement Certificates were introduced in 1697, proof that a particular parish had accepted a person for settlement by birth, apprenticeship, or because they paid rates there. Indemnity certificates allowed paupers to travel to seek work, but if they became destitute they could be forcibly returned to their parish of origin, with removal orders being issued by the justices. Disputed removals could be referred to the justices sitting in Quarter Sessions.
Other poor law records include:
- Accounts of the overseers, detailing rates payable by parishioners.
- Apprenticeship registers and apprenticeship indentures.
- Bastardy Orders for the upkeep of illegitimate children.
Knatchbull’s Act of 1722 allowed parishes to buy or rent property as a workhouse to lodge and maintain the poor. Those declining to enter the workhouse could be deprived of further relief.
Gilbert’s Act of 1782 enabled parishes to club together into Gilbert Unions with paid guardians and governors of the poor house. The effect of the Act was limited, but there were 4 Gilbert Unions near to Leeds: Barwick-in-Elmet, Carlton, Great Preston and Great Ouseburn.
The New Poor Law, 1834 onwards
The Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834 has been hailed as one of the most important pieces of social legislation ever. It aimed to deter the able-bodied from claiming poor relief but still providing a refuge for the ailing and the helpless.
Unlike the old poor laws, the new Act imposed a nationwide uniformity in the treatment of paupers. It was based on the belief that the deserving and the undeserving poor could be distinguished by a simple test: anyone prepared to accept relief in the repellent workhouse must be lacking the moral determination to survive outside it.
The other guiding principle of the new regime was that of "less eligibility" namely that conditions in the workhouse should never be better than those of "an independent labourer of the lowest class".
The detailed policy and administration of the new system was carried out by the newly created Poor Law Commission, which consisted of three Commissioners. Under its supervision, assistant commissioners were despatched around the country to group parishes into Poor Law Unions, each run by a locally elected Board of Guardians. Local Act Incorporations (where a workhouse had been built under a local Act of parliament) and Gilbert Unions were exempted from the new scheme, something that was to irritate the Commission and its successors for many years.
The 1834 Act received much criticism. In the north of England, partly fuelled by economic depression, an Anti-Poor Law movement took hold. In places such as Huddersfield, led by Richard Oastler, its supporters even included members of the Board of Guardians who obstructed the operation of the new Act by refusing to elect a Union Clerk, without whom no business could take place.
Records include:
- Board of Guardians’ Minutes, mostly administrative, but sometimes dealing with individual cases.
- Workhouse registers; lists of indoor & outdoor relief are rare survivals although there are sometimes registers of births and deaths in the workhouse infirmary.
In 1837, the new civil registration districts were based upon Poor Law Union boundaries. Many PLUs also developed responsibilities for health and education, establishing Union Infirmaries and schools for pauper children.
The Poor Law system was dismantled in the C20th with the introduction of the welfare state:
1909 Old Age Pensions Act
1911 National Insurance Act established unemployment insurance
1929 Local Government Act and
1930 Poor Law Act abolished Boards of Guardians and transferred responsibility for poor relief and medical services to local authorities’ Public Assistance Committees
1948 Abolition of the final vestiges of the Poor Law
Establishment of National Health Service, which took over responsibility for former Union hospitals (except those in use as old people’s homes)
Records include: Hospitals records, which may include records inherited from the former Union infirmary, especially Registers of Admissions and Discharges.
Further Reading
D. Fraser (ed.) The New Poor Law in the Nineteenth Century (Macmillan, 1976)
D. Fraser (ed.) The Evolution of the British Welfare State (Macmillan, 1984)
S. & B. Webb The English Poor Law: The Last Hundred Years (1929)