The Poor Relief Act 1601 (43 Eliz 1 c 2) was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601, popularly known as the Elizabethan Poor Law, "43rd Elizabeth" or the Old Poor Law was passed in 1601 and created a poor law system for

England and Wales England and Wales () is one of the three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. The substantive law of the jurisdiction is Eng ...

. It formalised earlier practices of

poor relief 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 hel ...

distribution in England and WalesThe Poor Law: overview
/ref> and is generally considered a refinement of the

Act for the Relief of the Poor 1597 The Act for the Relief of the Poor 1597 was a piece of poor law legislation in England and Wales. It provided the first complete code of poor relief and was later amended by the Elizabethan Poor Law The Poor Relief Act 1601 (43 Eliz 1 c 2) wa ...

that established

Overseers of the Poor An overseer of the poor was an official who administered poor relief such as money, food, and clothing in England and various other countries which derived their law from England such as the United States. England In England, overseers of the poo ...

. The "Old Poor Law" was not one law but a collection of laws passed between the 16th and 18th centuries. The system's administrative unit was the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

. It was not a centralised government policy but a law which made individual parishes responsible for Poor Law legislation. The 1601 act saw a move away from the more obvious forms of punishing paupers under the Tudor system towards methods of "correction". Several amending pieces of legislation can be considered part of the Old Poor Law. These include: *1662 –

Poor Relief Act 1662 The Poor Relief Act 1662 (14 Car 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 ...

(Settlement Acts) *1723 – Workhouse Test Act *1782 –

Gilbert's Act The Relief of the Poor Act 1782 (22 Geo.3 c.83), 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 ...

*1795 –

Speenhamland The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law. It was created a ...

Origins

The origins of the Old Poor Law extend back into the 15th century with the decline of the monasteries and the breakdown of the medieval social structure. Charity was gradually replaced with a compulsory land tax levied at parish level.

Main points of the 1601 Act

*The

impotent poor 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 he ...

(people who can't work) were to be cared for in almshouse or a

poorhouse A poorhouse or workhouse is a government-run (usually by a county or municipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy. Workhouses In England, Wales and Ireland (but not in Scotland), ‘workhouse’ has been the ...

. The law offered relief to people who were unable to work: mainly those who were "lame, impotent, old, blind". *The able-bodied poor were to be set to work in a house of industry. Materials were to be provided for the poor to be set to work. *The

idle poor Idle generally refers to idleness, a lack of motion or energy. Idle or ''idling'', may also refer to: Technology * Idle (engine), engine running without load ** Idle speed * Idle (CPU), CPU non-utilisation or low-priority mode ** Synchronous ...

and vagrants were to be sent to a

house of correction The house of correction was a type of establishment built after the passing of the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), places where those who were "unwilling to work", including vagrants and beggars, were set to work. The building of houses of correctio ...

or even prison. *Pauper children would become apprentices. Text of the Ac
Reginae Elizabethae Anno 43 Chapter 2

Description

Relief under the Old Poor Law could take on one of two forms
/ref> –

indoor relief In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

, relief inside a workhouse, or

outdoor relief Outdoor relief, an obsolete term originating with the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601) The Poor Relief Act 1601 (43 Eliz 1 c 2) was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601, popularly known as the Elizabethan P ...

, relief in a form outside a workhouse. This could come in the form of money, food or even clothing. As the cost of building the different workhouses was great, outdoor relief continued to be the main form of relief in this period. Relief for those too ill or old to work, the so-called "impotent poor", was in the form of a payment or items of food ("the parish loaf") or clothing also known as outdoor relief. Some aged people might be accommodated in parish

alms house An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) was charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the medieval era. They were often targeted at the poor of a locality, at those from certain ...

s, though these were usually private charitable institutions. Meanwhile, able-bodied beggars who had refused work were often placed in houses of correction (indoor relief). However, provision for the many able-bodied poor in the workhouse, which provided accommodation at the same time as work, was relatively unusual, and most workhouses developed later. The 1601 Law said that poor parents and children were responsible for each other – elderly parents would live with their children. The 1601 Poor Law could be described as "

parochial Parochial is an adjective which may refer to: * Parishes, in religion ** Parish churches, also called parochial churches * Parochial schools, primary or secondary schools affiliated to a religious organisation * Parochialism Parochialism is the ...

" as the administrative unit of the system was the

. There were around 1,500 such parishes based upon the area around a parish church. This system allowed greater sensitivity towards paupers, but also made tyrannical behaviour from overseers possible. Overseers of the poor would know their paupers and so be able to differentiate between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. The Elizabethan Poor Law operated at a time when the population was small enough for everyone to know everyone else, so people's circumstances would be known and the idle poor would be unable to claim on the parishes' poor rate. The act levied a poor rate on each parish which overseers of the poor were able to collect. Those who had to pay this rate were property owners, or rather, in most cases, occupiers including tenants. The 1601 Act sought to deal with "settled" poor who had found themselves temporarily out of work – it was assumed they would accept indoor relief or outdoor relief. Neither method of relief was at this time in history seen as harsh. The act was supposed to deal with beggars who were considered a threat to civil order. The act was passed at a time when poverty was considered necessary as it was thought that only fear of poverty made people work. In 1607 a house of correction was set up in each county. However, this system was separate from the 1601 system which distinguished between the settled poor and "vagrants".

Criticisms of the 1601 Act

Implementation and variation

There was much variation in the application of the law and there was a tendency for the destitute to migrate towards the more generous parishes, usually situated in the towns. There was wide variation in the amount of poor relief given out. As the parish was the administrative unit of the system there was great diversity in the system. Since there were no administrative standards, parishes were able to interpret the law as they wished. Some cities, such as

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

, Exeter and

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

were able to obtain by-laws which established their control onto several of the urban parishes within their jurisdiction. Bristol gained a private Act of Parliament in 1696 which allowed the city to create a 'manufactory' so that the profits from the paupers' work could be used for maintenance of the poor relief system.

Outdoor relief

Outdoor relief continued to be the most popular form of relief for the able-bodied poor even though the law described that "the poor should be set to work". In 1795 the Speenhamland system was introduced as a system of outdoor relief. Again, there was variation within the system with some parishes subsidising with food and others with money. Some parishes were more generous than others so there was no uniformity to the system. The

Speenhamland system The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law. It was created as ...

was popular in the south of England. Elsewhere the

Roundsman The Roundsman System (sometimes termed the billet, or ticket, or item system), in the Elizabethan Poor Law (1601), was a form of organised labour exchange for the poorest labourers by which a parish vestry helped to pay local farmers, households ...

and

Labour rate The Labour Rate was a system of poor relief (outdoor relief), used in England from 1832 to 1834, where workers were paid at a given rate. If this was not met then the rest had to be made up by the parish's poor relief.industrialisation, a mobile population, a series of bad harvests during the 1790s and the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

tested the old poor law to the breaking point.

Settlement

The 1601 Act states that each individual parish was responsible for its 'own' poor. Arguments over which parish was responsible for a pauper's poor relief and concerns over migration to more generous parishes led to the passing of the

Settlement Act 1662 The Poor Relief Act 1662 (14 Car 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 ...

which allowed relief only to established residents of a parish – mainly through birth, marriage and apprenticeship. A pauper applicant had to prove a 'settlement’. If unable to, they were removed to the next parish that was nearest to the place of their birth, or where they might prove some connection. Some paupers were moved hundreds of miles. Although each parish that they passed through was not responsible for them, they were supposed to supply food and drink and shelter for at least one night. Individual parishes were keen to keep costs of poor relief as low as possible and there are examples of paupers in some cases being shunted back and forth between parishes. The Settlement Laws allowed strangers to a parish to be removed after 40 days if they were not working, but the cost of removing such people meant that they were often left until they tried to claim poor relief. In 1697 Settlement Laws were tightened when people could be barred from entering a parish unless they produced a Settlement certificate.

Effect on the labour market

The Act was criticised in later years for its distortion of the labour market, through the power given to parishes to let them remove 'undeserving' poor. Another criticism of the Act was that it applied to rated land not personal or movable wealth, therefore benefiting commercial and business interests.

Cost

The building of different types of workhouses was expensive. The Workhouse Act of 1772 allowed parishes to combine and apply for a

workhouse test The workhouse test was a condition of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. It stated that anyone who wanted to get poor relief must enter a workhouse. The condition was never implemented in Britain and outdoor relief continued to be given. The inte ...

, where conditions were made worse than those outside. The Act stated that workhouses, poorhouses and houses of correction should be built for the different types of pauper. However, it was not cost-effective to build these different types of buildings. For this reason parishes such as Bristol combined these institutions so that the profits paupers made were plunged back into the maintenance of the system.

Reliance on the parish

The system's reliance on the parish can be seen as both a strength and a weakness. It could be argued it made the system more humane and sensitive, but a local crisis such as a poor harvest could be a great burden on the local

poor rate In England and Wales the poor rate was a tax on property levied in each parish, which was used to provide poor relief. It was collected under both the Old Poor Law and the New Poor Law. It was absorbed into 'general rate' local taxation in the ...

Variation from the system

The 18th-century workhouse movement began at the end of the 17th century with the establishment of the

Bristol Corporation of the Poor The Bristol Corporation of the Poor was the board responsible for poor relief in Bristol, England when the Poor Law system was in operation. It was established in 1696 by the Bristol Poor Act. The main promoter of the act was a merchant, John ...

, founded by act of parliament in 1696. The corporation established a workhouse which combined housing and care of the poor with a house of correction for petty offenders. Following the example of Bristol, twelve more towns and cities established similar corporations in the next two decades. Because these corporations required a private act, they were not suitable for smaller towns and individual parishes. Starting with the parish of Olney, Buckinghamshire in 1714, several dozen small towns and individual parishes established their own institutions without any specific legal authorization. These were concentrated in the South Midlands and in the county of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

. From the late 1710s the

Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) is a UK-based Christian charity. Founded in 1698 by Thomas Bray, it has worked for over 300 years to increase awareness of the Christian faith in the UK and across the world. The SPCK is t ...

began to promote the idea of parochial workhouses.

Knatchbull's Act

The Society published several pamphlets on the subject, and supported Sir Edward Knatchbull in his successful efforts to steer the Workhouse Test Act through

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

in 1723. The act gave legislative authority for the establishment of parochial workhouses, by both single parishes and as joint ventures between two or more parishes. More importantly, the Act helped to publicise the idea of establishing workhouses to a national audience. The Workhouse Test Act made workhouses a deterrent as conditions were to be regulated to make them worse than outside of the workhouse. However, during this period outdoor relief was still the most popular method of poor relief as it was easier to administer. By 1776 some 1,912 parish and corporation workhouses had been established in England and Wales, housing almost 100,000 paupers. Although many parishes and pamphlet writers expected to earn money from the labour of the poor in workhouses, the vast majority of people obliged to take up residence in workhouses were ill, elderly, or children whose labour proved largely unprofitable. The demands, needs and expectations of the poor also ensured that workhouses came to take on the character of general social policy institutions, combining the functions of

crèche Crèche or creche (from Latin ''cripia'' "crib, cradle") may refer to: *Child care center, an organization of adults who take care of children in place of their parents *Nativity scene, a group of figures arranged to represent the birth of Jesus ...

, night shelter, geriatric ward and

orphanage An orphanage is a residential institution, total institution or group home, devoted to the care of orphans and children who, for various reasons, cannot be cared for by their biological families. The parents may be deceased, absent, or ab ...

Gilbert's Act

Gilbert's Act was passed in 1782 to combat the excessive costs of outdoor relief. It promoted indoor alternatives and allowed parishes to combine to support the impotent poor. However, outdoor relief was still used to help the able-bodied poor.

Overhaul

Industrialisation

The 1601 system was for a pre-industrial society and the massive population increases after the Industrial Revolution strained the existing system. Mechanisation meant that unemployment was increasing, therefore poor relief costs could not be met.

French Wars

The

French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Prussia ...

and

occurred in 1792–1797, 1798–1801, 1805–1807, and 1813–1814, and ended after the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

in 1815. The wars meant that there were periods of trade

blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are leg ...

s on

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

which prevented Britain from importing large amounts of grain, thus raising the price of bread. The blockades coupled with poor harvests in 1813 and 1814 kept the price of bread high. After the war cheap imports returned. Many farmers went bankrupt because

remained high. Farmers also had to pay war-time taxes. Resulting bankruptcies caused rural workers to become unemployed, and many farmers that survived lowered their workers' wages. The

Corn Laws The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word ''corn'' in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat, oats and barley. They wer ...

were passed by the

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

government of

Lord Liverpool Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, (7 June 1770 – 4 December 1828) was a British Tory statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827. He held many important cabinet offices such as Foreign Secret ...

to protect British farmers. Imports could not occur until prices had reached 80 shillings a quarter. This aimed to prevent both grain prices and wages from fluctuating. However, this kept prices artificially high and made more people claim poor relief. Returning soldiers further added to pressures on the Poor Law system. Further poor harvests in 1818 and 1819 meant that the costs of poor relief hit £8m during this period.

Corruption

In 1819 select

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquially ...

were established. These were committees set up in each parish which were responsible for Poor Law administration. There were concerns over corruption within the system as contracts for supplying food and beer often went to local traders or these vestries.

Cost

The cost of the current system was increasing from the late 18th century into the 19th century. Although outdoor relief was cheaper than building

workhouses In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

, the numbers claiming outdoor relief increased. The increasing numbers of people claiming relief peaked after the economic dislocation caused by the French Wars when it was 12 shillings per head of population. During this period strain was also put on the system by a population increase from 9 million to 14 million in the time period indicated by the graph.

Unrest

One reason for changing the system was to prevent unrest or even revolution.

Habeas Corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...

was suspended and the

Six Acts Following the Peterloo Massacre on 16 August 1819, the government of the United Kingdom acted to prevent any future disturbances by the introduction of new legislation, the so-called Six Acts aimed at suppressing any meetings for the purpose of ...

passed to prevent possible riots. The Swing Riots highlighted the possibility of agricultural unrest.

Criticism from leading intellectuals

Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...

argued for a disciplinary, punitive approach to social problems, whilst the writings of

Thomas Malthus Thomas Robert Malthus (; 13/14 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Mal ...

focused attention on the problem of overpopulation, and the growth of illegitimacy.

David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill. Ricardo was also a politician, and a ...

argued that there was an "iron law of wages". The effect of poor relief, in the view of the reformers, was to undermine the position of the "independent labourer".

Historiography

The Historian

Mark Blaug Mark Blaug FBA (; 3 April 1927 – 18 November 2011) was a Dutch-born British economist (naturalised in 1982), who covered a broad range of topics during his long career. He was married to Ruth Towse. Life and work Blaug was born on 3 April ...

has defended the Old Poor Law system and criticised the Poor Law Amendment Act. Evidence to the 1937 Committee on the Poor Law Amendment Act also found some support for the existing system.In praise of the old Poor Law
/ref>

Reform

The

1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws The 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws was a group set up to decide how to change the Poor Law systems in England and Wales. The group included Nassau Senior, a professor from Oxford University who was against the allowanc ...

wrote a report stating the changes which needed to be made to the poor. These changes were implemented in the

Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 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. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the ''Poor Relie ...

Repeal

The whole Act was repealed by section 117 of, and Part I of Schedule 14 to, the

General Rate Act 1967 A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of highest military ranks, high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers t ...

References

External links

Vicrtorianwebs article on the 1601 ActThe text of the Act
* ttps://archive.today/20120805184150/http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/OLDPOORL.htm The Old Poor Law in Englandbr>British social policy, 1601–1948Text of the Act in Modern English
{{DEFAULTSORT:Act For The Relief Of The Poor 1601 1601 in English law Acts of the Parliament of England (1485–1603) English Poor Laws

Origins

Main points of the 1601 Act

Description

Criticisms of the 1601 Act

Implementation and variation

Outdoor relief

Settlement

Effect on the labour market

Cost

Reliance on the parish

Variation from the system

Knatchbull's Act

Gilbert's Act

Overhaul

Industrialisation

French Wars

Corruption

Cost

Unrest

Criticism from leading intellectuals

Historiography

Reform

Repeal

See also

References

Further reading

External links