Act of Parliament | |
Long title | An Acte for the better Releife of the Poore of this Kingdom. [b] |
---|---|
Citation | 14 Cha. 2. c. 12
|
Dates | |
Royal assent | 19 May 1662 |
Commencement | 7 January 1662 |
Other legislation | |
Amended by | |
Repealed by | Statute Law Revision Act 1948 |
Status: Repealed | |
Text of statute as originally enacted |
The Poor Relief Act 1662 (14 Cha. 2. c. 12) was an Act of the Cavalier Parliament of England. It was an Act for the Better Relief of the Poor of this Kingdom and is also known as the Settlement Act or the Settlement and Removal Act. The purpose of the Act was to establish the parish to which a person belonged (i.e. his/her place of "settlement"), and hence clarify which parish was responsible for him should he become in need of Poor Relief (or "chargeable" to the parish poor rates). This was the first occasion when a document proving domicile became statutory: these were called "settlement certificates".
After 1662, if a man left his settled parish to move elsewhere, he had to take his settlement certificate, which guaranteed that his home parish would pay for his "removal" costs (from the host parish) back to his home if he needed poor relief. As parishes were often unwilling to issue such certificates, people often stayed where they were –knowing that, should they become indigent, they would be entitled to their parish's poor rate.
The 1662 Act stipulated that if a poor person (that is, resident of a tenancy with a taxable value less than £10 per year, who did not fall under the other protected categories) remained in the parish for forty days of undisturbed residency, he could acquire "settlement rights" in that parish. However, within those forty days, upon any local complaint, two justices of the peace could remove the man and return him to his home parish. As a result, some parish officers dispatched their poor to other parishes, with instructions to remain hidden for forty days before revealing themselves. This loophole was closed with the Reviving and Continuance Act 1685 (1 Ja. 2. c.17) which required new arrivals to register with parish authorities. [1] But sympathetic parish officers often hid the registration, and did not reveal the presence of new arrivals until the required residency period was over. As a result, the law was further tightened in 1692 by the (Poor Relief Act 1691 (3 Will. & Mar. c. 11), and parish officers were obliged to publicly publish arrival registrations in writing in the local church Sunday circular, and read to the congregation, and that the forty days would only start counting from thereon.
The settlement laws benefited the owners of large estates who controlled housing. Some land owners demolished empty housing in order to reduce the population of their lands and prevent people from returning. It was also common to recruit labourers from neighbouring parishes so that they could easily be sacked. Magistrates could order parishes to grant poor relief. However, often the magistrates were landowners and therefore unlikely to make relief orders that would increase poor rates.
The Settlement Act was repealed in 1834 (under the terms of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, which introduced the union workhouses), although not fully. The concept of parish settlement has been characterised as "incompatible with the newly developing industrial system", because it hindered internal migration to factory towns. [2]
It was finally repealed by section 245 of, and schedule 11 to, the Poor Law Act 1927 (17 & 18 Geo. 5. c. 14) and by the Statute Law Revision Act 1948.
To gain settlement in a parish a person had to meet at least one of the following conditions:-
The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief in England and Wales that developed out of the codification of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws in 1587–1598. The system continued until the modern welfare state emerged in the late 1940s.
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey denying the right of the poor to subsistence. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the Poor Relief Act 1601 and attempted to fundamentally change the poverty relief system in England and Wales. It resulted from the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws, which included Edwin Chadwick, John Bird Sumner and Nassau William Senior. Chadwick was dissatisfied with the law that resulted from his report. The Act was passed two years after the Representation of the People Act 1832 which extended the franchise to middle-class men. Some historians have argued that this was a major factor in the PLAA being passed.
The Act of Uniformity 1548, the Act of Uniformity 1549, the Uniformity Act 1548, or the Act of Equality was an act of the Parliament of England, passed on 21 January 1549.
The Coronation Oath Act 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England. It was passed in 1689.
The Poor Relief Act 1601 was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601, popularly known as the Elizabethan Poor Law, the "43rd Elizabeth", or the "Old Poor Law", was passed in 1601 and created a poor law system for England and Wales.
The Relief of the Poor Act 1782, also known as Gilbert's Act, was a British poor relief law proposed by Thomas Gilbert which aimed to organise poor relief on a county basis, counties being organised into parishes which could set up poorhouses or workhouses between them. However, these workhouses were intended to help only the elderly, sick and orphaned, not the able-bodied poor. The sick, elderly and infirm were cared for in poorhouses whereas the able-bodied poor were provided with poor relief in their own homes. Gilbert's Act aimed to be more humane than the previous modification to the Poor Law, the Workhouse Test Act. During the 1780s, there was an increase in unemployment and underemployment due to high food prices, low wages and the effects of enclosing land. This caused poor rates to increase rapidly, which wealthy landowners found unacceptable.
In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of helping the poor. Alongside ever-changing attitudes towards poverty, many methods have been attempted to answer these questions. Since the early 16th century legislation on poverty enacted by the Parliament of England, poor relief has developed from being little more than a systematic means of punishment into a complex system of government-funded support and protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state.
The Profane Oaths Act 1745 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1746, in effect from 1 June 1746, and formally repealed in 1967. It established a system of fines payable for "profane cursing and swearing".
The Parish Apprentices Act 1842 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, which received royal assent on 23 March 1842 and was repealed in 1927. It extended "the power of magistrates to adjudicate in cases in which no premium has been paid". The Act was repealed by the Poor Law Act 1927.
The Succession to the Crown Act 1707 is an act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain. It is still partly in force in Great Britain.
The following article presents a timeline of the poor law system in England from its origins in the Tudor and Elizabethan era to its abolition in 1948.
The Poor Removal Act 1795, sometimes called the Removal Act 1795, was an Act of Parliament which modified the Settlement Act 1662, an Act which concerned when a pauper could receive Poor relief. The effect of the Removal Act was "that no non-settled person could be removed from a parish unless he or she applied for relief."
The Poor Law (Scotland) Act 1845 was an Act of Parliament that reformed the Poor Law system of Scotland.
The Poor Relief (Ireland) Act 1838 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that created the system of poor relief in Ireland. The legislation was largely influenced by the English Poor Law Act of 1834.
The Toleration Act 1688, also referred to as the Act of Toleration or the Toleration Act 1689, was an Act of the Parliament of England. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received royal assent on 24 May 1689.
The City of London Militia Act 1662 or Militia Act 1662 is an Act of the Parliament of England which codified the power of [lord-]lieutenants of places in England and Wales to raise the militia. In practice, most lieutenancy areas were counties, but the 1662 act made exemptions for the Constable of the Tower and Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports to act as lieutenants within their jurisdictions. Most provisions of the 1662 act were implicitly repealed by subsequent Militia Acts, and the whole act was explicitly repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863 except in relation to the City of London, Tower Hamlets, and Cinque Ports. The Territorial Army and Militia Act 1921 repealed the whole act except for section 1 in relation to the Lord Lieutenant of the City of London and section 26 in relation to levying rates for the City of London Militia. The restricted scope of its remaining provisions was reflected in the official short title City of London Militia Act 1662 assigned in 1948. Section 1 was repealed by the Reserve Forces Act 1980, while as of 2023 section 26 as amended remains in force in England and Wales.
The Poor Relief Act 1691 was an Act of the Parliament of England.
The Scottish poorhouse, occasionally referred to as a workhouse, provided accommodation for the destitute and poor in Scotland. The term poorhouse was almost invariably used to describe the institutions in that country, as unlike the regime in their workhouse counterparts in neighbouring England and Wales, residents were not usually required to labour in return for their upkeep.
The Relief of the Poor Act 1696, formally titled An Act for supplying some Defects in the Laws for the Relief of the Poor of this Kingdom, was a 1697 welfare statute, operating within the framework of the Poor Relief Act 1601. This act is perhaps best remembered for its expansion of the requirement that welfare recipients be marked to indicate their status, in this case by wearing a prominent badge.
The Poor Relief Act 1722, also known as the Workhouse Test Act 1722, Workhouse Test Act 1723 or Knatchbull's Act, was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of Great Britain. It was titled "An Act for Amending the Laws relating to the Settlement, Employment, and Relief of the Poor".