brianb
12-03-2008, 12:50 AM
Hi everyone.
being up there with some of those ignorant of our past I enquired about the role an ancestor played as an "overseer". Gloucester Archieve kindly took the trouble to provide a description. Unfortunatly the records for my ancestors parish have not survived, but iI thought others may appreciate this description, see below.
Regards
Brian.
Before 1834, the responsibility for the care of the poor rested with each individual parish and each year the Parish Vestry Meeting, one of the main units of Local Government of the time, appointed two Overseers of the Poor.
These men were normally substantial householders in the parish and were responsible for collecting the Poor Rate (which funded the care of the poor) and administering the Poor Laws. The responsibilities of the Overseers generated a variety of written records and these include accounts and material relating to settlement, pauper apprenticeship and bastardy. This material formed part of the parish records and normally kept in the parish chest in each parish and this means that it does not have a high survival rate and for some parishes no overseers' records have survived at all.
The Overseers' accounts are straightforward and normally include details of the Poor Rate collected from the householders in their parish and money spent on caring for individual people or families in need. This means that the accounts can include details of payments to individual people for clothing or medical care as well as other expenses the Overseers incurred as part of their duties.
The Overseers were responsible for administering the Poor Laws so they had to investigate the origins of people who moved into their parish in order to establish who would be responsible for them if they were unable to support themselves. They were also responsible for organizing the removal of people who did not have a legal settlement in their parish but who needed financial support. These responsibilities generated settlement examinations, which can include detailed information about the origins and movements of individual people, and removal orders which relate to the sending back of people to their place of settlement. The Overseers also issued settlement certificates to people settled in their own parish who wanted to move away in order to confirm that the parish would accept them back if it became necessary. The administration of the Poor Laws was quite complicated and was very dependent on the diligence of the individual Overseers and so comprehensive series of records do not survive for every parish.
The Overseers also had a responsibility to apprentice pauper children and to make sure that the fathers of illegitimate children made a financial contribution to the maintenance of their child if it became necessary. These functions generated records so apprenticeship indentures and bastardy examinations and orders can also survive.
Where they survive all these records are listed in the Overseers' section of, the parish catalogues. Normally these catalogues include a brief description of the records together with the covering dates and call numbers. They do not usually include details of individual entries in each series of records. In Gloucestershire, we have transcribed all the surviving overseers' records relating to settlement, apprenticeship and bastardy and these transcripts include all the information in the original documents to save wear on these.
being up there with some of those ignorant of our past I enquired about the role an ancestor played as an "overseer". Gloucester Archieve kindly took the trouble to provide a description. Unfortunatly the records for my ancestors parish have not survived, but iI thought others may appreciate this description, see below.
Regards
Brian.
Before 1834, the responsibility for the care of the poor rested with each individual parish and each year the Parish Vestry Meeting, one of the main units of Local Government of the time, appointed two Overseers of the Poor.
These men were normally substantial householders in the parish and were responsible for collecting the Poor Rate (which funded the care of the poor) and administering the Poor Laws. The responsibilities of the Overseers generated a variety of written records and these include accounts and material relating to settlement, pauper apprenticeship and bastardy. This material formed part of the parish records and normally kept in the parish chest in each parish and this means that it does not have a high survival rate and for some parishes no overseers' records have survived at all.
The Overseers' accounts are straightforward and normally include details of the Poor Rate collected from the householders in their parish and money spent on caring for individual people or families in need. This means that the accounts can include details of payments to individual people for clothing or medical care as well as other expenses the Overseers incurred as part of their duties.
The Overseers were responsible for administering the Poor Laws so they had to investigate the origins of people who moved into their parish in order to establish who would be responsible for them if they were unable to support themselves. They were also responsible for organizing the removal of people who did not have a legal settlement in their parish but who needed financial support. These responsibilities generated settlement examinations, which can include detailed information about the origins and movements of individual people, and removal orders which relate to the sending back of people to their place of settlement. The Overseers also issued settlement certificates to people settled in their own parish who wanted to move away in order to confirm that the parish would accept them back if it became necessary. The administration of the Poor Laws was quite complicated and was very dependent on the diligence of the individual Overseers and so comprehensive series of records do not survive for every parish.
The Overseers also had a responsibility to apprentice pauper children and to make sure that the fathers of illegitimate children made a financial contribution to the maintenance of their child if it became necessary. These functions generated records so apprenticeship indentures and bastardy examinations and orders can also survive.
Where they survive all these records are listed in the Overseers' section of, the parish catalogues. Normally these catalogues include a brief description of the records together with the covering dates and call numbers. They do not usually include details of individual entries in each series of records. In Gloucestershire, we have transcribed all the surviving overseers' records relating to settlement, apprenticeship and bastardy and these transcripts include all the information in the original documents to save wear on these.