Poverty

Question 1

Tudor legislation

Answer 1

1531 - Vagabonds Act
1547 - Poor Rate collection instead of collection on sunday; Vagrancy Act (3 days without job branded ‘V’, not adhered to)
1552 - Collector of Alms created
1555 - Bridewell established
1563 - Act for the relief of the poor
1597-8 Act for the relief of the poor; Overseers to collect tax and be monitored by JP’s. REGULATION AND COMPULSORY GIVING.
1601 - Elizabethan Poor Law amendment provided for deserving poor.

Question 2

Stuart legislation

Answer 2

1650 - corporations of the poor in London est.
1667 - Settlement/poor relief act - provisions only to those within the parish via. birth/marriage/apprenticeship
1696 - Bristol Corporation of the Poor established.

Question 3

stats on poor law

Answer 3

by the end of the c17 £400,000 spent on the poor, enough to feed 5% of the population.
Change over time in spending: from 4d per week in 1590’s to 15d per week in 1690’s
in 1600 10,000 from public donations to poor vs. 25,000 private - in 1700 400,000 public to 150,000 private.

Question 4

Key case study on poor relief

Answer 4

McIntosh - Hadleigh, Suffolk town. Earlier administrators of the poor “experimental period had greater discretionary power”
Town average - 4-5% population received help and 25% gave it. Between 1579 and 1596 records of 6,500 payments to the poor. Poor relief operated by 25 principal families who operated an almshouse which housed 32 elderly people (age 50-90)
in the 1590’s Hadleigh spent £180 p.a. on 120-30 people.
of 583 people receiving aid, 58% only occasionally, 1/2 for a whole year, 13% ten years or more. Children = 2/3 of total boarded for relief, age 5-9, 1/2 orphans.