what are the poor laws

[lowestoft-lass]

can someone please tell me ? what are the poor laws? are they something i can read online? what would they tell me? how can they help with my family tree?

[Peter Goodey]

It is always worth trying GenUKI first.

Have a look at http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/#Poorhouses and follow the links.

[Geoffers]

can someone please tell me ? what are the poor laws? are they something i can read online? what would they tell me? how can they help with my family tree?
No doubt there is something somewhere online. "what are the poor laws" is is probably the most complicated question asked on these boards - books, some very large books have been written on the subect.

Legislation has been enacted governing the poor and vagrants in 1388, 1391, 1494, 1530, 1536, 1547, 1563, 1572, 1597, 1601, 1662, 1691, 1697, 1723, 1782, 1815, 1834, 1847, 1871, 1913, 1929 and porbably some others which I have missed.

Very, very briefly - laws have been passed governing what the poor can/cannot do, where they may live, who provides help to look after the poor who are in need. I'd recommend you get a book on local history from the library

continued....

[Guy Etchells]

The Poor Laws became necessary when due to the abolition of the monasteries the poor started to become a drain on the resources of a parish.
The measures invoked eventually meant that everyone had a parish of settlement and that parish was responsible for them if they fell on hard time.

This meant for family historians that the examinations revealed a lot of interesting facts about any of our ancestors who fell foul of the system.
It also provided lists of those who had to pay the poor rate (thmessage=The Poor Laws became necessary when due to the abolition of the monasteries the poor started to become a drain on the resources of a parish.
The measures invoked eventually meant that everyone had a parish of settlement and that parish was responsible for them if they fell on hard time.

This meant for family historians that the examinations revealed a lot of interesting facts about any of our ancestors who fell foul of the system.
It also provided lists of those who had to pay the poor rate (the money used to support the paupers).
As a result the poor laws may help many in their family history search.
The system lasted in one form or another right through until the early 20th century.
Cheers
Guy

[Geoffers]

If you don't know much about it, you are probably interested in the Law governing the 19th century and the records relating to workhouses and settlements which can be very useful.

Basically a person could only live where they had obtained a settlement.

A settlement to live in a parish could be gained by:
Renting property with more than 10Pds per year
Paying the Poor Rates
Serving as a Parish Officer
Being bound apprentice in the parish by indenture
Completing a year in service, if unmarried
Being hired to work for one year.

The examinations into whether someone could live in a parish can be very detailed and tell you a lot of someone's life. If someone entered a workhouse, you may find more information there about them.

Geoffers

[lowestoft-lass]

thank-you for the help, i have one ancestor in the workhouse in 1901 working at the age of 70..i couldnt work out why he would be in there coming from a very large family..but i now get the idea of the work house..

its funny i use to be a fast thinker before i started tracing the family ...now i have to think on things (and im only in my early 30s)...to much info spining in my head.

for anyone who thinks tracing a family tree is easy is so so wrong. i always thought it was only the living family who could play with your mind.

[Guy Etchells]

In addition
Being born there
Living there for one year
Marrying a man from the parish.

This last was the cause of untold misery, a woman could marry (in her own parish) a man from a different parish.
If he then died she could be dragged from the parish she had lived in all of her life to some parish she had never even visited.
Simply because that was the parish of settlement of her deceased husband.
Cheers
Guy

[tony vines]

I knew a little about the workhouses before reading this educational thread but hardly anything about the administration of the Poor Laws. In his reply Geoffers referred to the Examination. This is clearly another form of available record and since I too had a 'half rellie' in the workhouse in 1901 I'd be interested if someone could expand a little on that theme e.g what to look for and where?

This particular person was in the boot and shoe industry in the late 1800s but is listed as "epileptic" in the workhouse census record so I'd wondered whether his epilepsy had made it impossible to hold down a job in his trade. Interestingly his wife and family were separately listed in a house in the same census. How did that work? Would he have sent his relief home or would it have been paid direct to them? Interestingly he was born two counties away from the workhouse so he presumably gained his settlement by living and working in his adopted parish for several years.

Before I started this mad obsessional hobby I had a quaint notion that workhouses were entirely Dickensian and was quite shocked when I discovered that the Poor Laws and workhouses survived well into the 20th century (misspent youth I'm afraid...please see my tag line). Indeed there was one just down the road from where I now live and it was knocked down only about 40 years ago.

cheers

[Geoffers]

thank-you for the help, i have one ancestor in the workhouse in 1901 working at the age of 70..i couldnt work out why he would be in there coming from a very large family..but i now get the idea of the work house.
If you haven't already, look at
www. workhouses.org.uk/
which is very informative.

Geoffers