The Early History of English Poor Relief

by of Girton College E. M. Leonard

We must then regard the system of poor relief from another point of view and see what kind of relief could be obtained both in the country and in the towns by the different classes of poor. This will include the help afforded to the whole of the poorer population in years of scarcity as well as the means that were taken in ordinary times to pension the old, to train and maintain children, and to find work for the unemployed.

Lastly we will endeavour to determine when and where the administrative machinery was really set in motion and how far the relief afforded to the different classes of poor was given all over the country. The answer to these questions will enable us to see why it is that in England poor laws were not only made but administered, while in some other countries they were not administered even after they had been made.

2. Legislation from 1597 to 1644.

The work accomplished with regard to the poor by Parliament was unimportant during the period from 1597 to 1644 but some slight changes were made in the law. It was in 1601 that the statute on which our system of poor relief has since rested was passed in its final form. This law, known as the 43 Eliz. c. 2, is often regarded as inaugurating new methods of dealing with the poor, but as a matter of fact few important legal enactments have initiated fewer innovations. It is simply a re-enactment with very slight alterations of the statute of 1597-8. The clause of the statute of 1597 which declared all beggars to be rogues if they asked for anything more than food was omitted in 1601, while the liability of parents to support their children, imposed in 1597, was in 1601 extended to grandparents also. Otherwise the slight differences between the two Acts consist chiefly of modifications of detail, designed to render certain doubtful points of law[302]. This statute of 1601 was itself only passed as a temporary measure but it was continued by the Parliaments both of James I. and of Charles I. It remained by far the most important regulation concerning the relief of the poor until the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834[303], and is in force as the basis of our system of Poor Relief at the present day.

In comparison with this statute all other legislation of the period on the subject is of small importance, but several additions were made to the law, and in four cases these contain provisions which supplement the system of relief ordered by the principal enactment of 1601. The first of these concerns maimed soldiers and was also passed in 1601[304]. The two former statutes on the subject, 35 Eliz. c. 4, and 39 Eliz. c. 21, were repealed, but the provisions of both of them were practically re-enacted. A County Treasurer was to be elected who was to pay pensions to those who had been wounded or maimed in the wars. The money was to be raised by a county rate levied on the parishes as formerly provided, but the amount that might be so raised was now increased to an average of sixpence weekly from every parish with a maximum of tenpence from the most highly rated parishes. Another enactment relating to the relief of the poor was the 43 Eliz. c. 4. This was likewise passed in 1601 and substantially re-enacts a statute of 1597 (39 Eliz. c. 6). It provides for inquiries into breaches of trust by means of writs directed by the Lord Chancellor to the bishop of the diocese. The list given of the kinds of charity affected shows how great and varied was the endowed almsgiving of the time. Some funds had been assigned for "reliefe of aged impotent and poore people; some for maintenance of sicke and maymed souldiers and marriners schooles of learninge, free schooles and schollers in Universities; some for repaire of bridges, portes, havens, causwaies, churches, sea bankes and highwaies; some for educacon and prefermente of orphans; some for or towardes reliefe, stocke or maintenance for howses of correccon; some for mariages of poore maides; some for supportacon, ayde and helpe of younge tradesmen, handicraftesmen and persons decayed; and others for reliefe or redemption of prisoners or captives and for aide or ease of any poore inhabitants concerninge paymente of fifteenes, settinge out of souldiers and other taxes[305]." In both years in which the great poor laws were passed, in 1597 and in 1601, a statute of this kind was authorised. The fact indicates that Parliament desired to maintain and strengthen the older voluntary system of charity in order that it might work concurrently with the newer organisation now growing up. A third measure relating to the relief of the poor was passed in 1603 and provided that a special rate might be levied for the sustenance of those infected with plague; the rate in this case was to be levied, not only from the parish but from the whole of the surrounding district[306].

But the fourth regulation of this kind is the most important. It was passed in 1609-10 and concerned the building of Houses of Correction. The Bill introduced on this subject in 1597 had been rejected after much dispute and discussion and in its place the statute "on rogues" had been hastily passed; this had repealed all the old regulations concerning Houses of Correction and although it gave the justices the power of levying a rate for the establishment of such institutions it had not compelled them to use the power. The law therefore on this point was much less exacting in its requirements than that which had previously been in force. The new enactment of 1609-10 therefore provided that one or more Houses of Correction must be erected within every county. It is here laid down that these houses were to be used to set "rogues or such other idle persons on worke," and no mention is made of the deserving unemployed[307]. This therefore probably marks the time when Houses of Correction ceased to be half workhouses and became very much more like gaols.

Thus while the law of 1601 is the basis on which relief was given during the period, additional provision was made during the next ten years for the assistance of maimed soldiers and of persons infected with plague, and for the building of Houses of Correction[308].

Before leaving the statutes it is perhaps worth while to notice the proviso that exists in so many of them in favour of John Dutton. The lord of Dutton claimed jurisdiction over the minstrels of Cheshire. In the reign of John, the Earl of Chester was imprisoned by the Welsh in Rhuddlan Castle. He sent for aid to Roger de Lacy then the Constable of Cheshire. It was the time of Chester fair. De Lacy collected a multitude of the shoemakers, fiddlers and loiterers who were in the town and with this force released the Earl. For this he obtained a grant for himself and his heirs of jurisdiction over minstrels and over disorderly characters in Cheshire. In 1216 this privilege was granted by John de Lacy to Hugh Dutton and remained in the hands of the lords of Dutton through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was the custom for the lord of Dutton to hold a Court at Chester on Midsummer day and in 1498 he received from the whole body of minstrels four flagons of wine and a lance with fourpence halfpenny from each of them. A Court of this kind was held as late as 1756[309]. In nearly all the statutes concerning vagabonds until that of 1822, the rights of John Dutton's heirs were preserved, so that in the seventeenth century the minstrels of Cheshire, licensed by the lord of Dutton, might wander without fear of the penalty inflicted on wanderers elsewhere,—a curious but direct consequence of an incident of border warfare in the early part of the thirteenth century. Few facts illustrate better both the continuity of English history and the toleration of anomalies by English law than this perpetuation of the quaint jurisdiction of the house of Dutton for more than six centuries.

Some of the legal handbooks throw considerable light on the way in which these statutes were interpreted. In the seventeenth century "The Countrey Justice" was one of the most popular of these books. The writer, Michael Dalton, defines the meaning of the term "poor." Like Arth, he divides the poor into three kinds, "the poore by impotency and defect," the "poore by casualty," and the "thriftlesse poore." This classification was common at the time and dates back to the reign of Edward VI. The "poore by impotency and defect" included the aged and decrepit, the orphan child, lunatic, blind or lame people, or those who were diseased. The term "poore by casualty" meant maimed people, householders who had lost their property owing to loss from "fire, water, robbery or suretiship, &c." and poor men "overcharged with children." Among the "thriftlesse poore" were included "the riotous and prodigall person that consumeth all with play or drinking," dissolute and slothful people, those who wilfully spoil their work, and vagabonds who will abide in no service or place. The "poore by impotency" were to be provided with enough to sustain them properly; the poor by casualty were to be "holden or set to work by the overseers," and further relieved according to their need, but the thriftless poor were to go to the House of Correction. None of these last, he says, are to have relief from the town for that "were a meanes to nourish them in their lewdnesse or idlenesse which take it, to rob others of releefe that want it, to wrong those of their money that pay it, and to condemn them of oversight which dispose it[310]."