Parish outdoor relief and able-bodied paupers (3.3)

Reliance on the parish

rapidly growinig towns began to employ piad officials
each parish was to administer relief to its own poor and collect taxes in order to provide appropriate relief
local justices of the peace (JPs)
because the dispensing of relief was based on an administrative unit as small as a parish, greater sensitivity could be shown to the poor
local people would be better able to distinguish between those who genuinely needed help, and those who did not
any local crisis such as a poor harvest could place a burden on locally raise finances
to bring about some consistency in the treatment of the poor, attempts were made to categorise the poor

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indigence - a person's inability to support themselves
deserving poor - those who were poor through no fault of their own and deemed worthy of support
undeserving poor - poverty as a result of a moral failing such as drunkeness or prostitution
if too much help was provided for the undeserving poor they would see no reason to work
a system was needed that would support the genuinely needy and deter the feckless and work-shy from using it as a permanent solution to their needs

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who was a parish responsible for?
Settlement Act 1662 - legal settlement was by birth, marriage, apprenticeship or inheritance
strangers in a parish could be removed if they were not working within 40 days
1697 - strangers could be barred from entering a parish unless they could produce a settlement certificate issued by their home parish
Removal Act 1795 modified the Settlement Act 1662 - prevented strangers from being removed unles they applied for relief
it was common for magistrates to enquire closely into a pauper's background and circumstances before agreeing to a parish's application for the removal of a pauper family
Settlement Laws - to ensure that the burden of providing for the poor did not overwhelm some parishes
they were not applied consistently over time or from place to place
local vestry minutes recorded the fortunes of pauper families
because so many people were on the move, locval overseers of the poor and the magistrates couldn't keep up with issuing, and carrying out, settlement orders

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cyclical unemployment caused only short-term distress and long-term relief in a workhouse would not be appropriate
late 18th century - bad harvests and strains of the Napeleonic Wars brought the PL to breaking point
lagging wages and increasing food prices meant many families struggled
the national solutions proposed by MP Samuel Whitbread in 1795 and Prime Minister William Pitt in 1796, were barely debated in the Commons, largely because the proposals involved the raising of wages to lift families out of poverty and the creation of a national poor law budget

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The Speenhamland System - introduced in 1795, a way of providing relief by subsidisng low wages, established a formal relationship between the price of bread and the number of dependants in a family (flour), south and east of Britain, never given legal backing
The Roundsman System - able-bodied workers sent in rotation to local farmers who would provide them with work, wages partly paid by farmers and partly by the parish
The Labour Rate - an agreement between parishioners to establish a labour rate in addition to the usual poor rate, the total parish labour bill was worked out according to what was assumed to be the going rate, 1832 - one parish in five was operating some sort of Labour Rate

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