Mosterton

RECORDS OF THE OVERSEERS OF THE POOR

NOTE ON THE POOR LAWS

The Government attempted to tackle the problem of relieving the poor through a series of laws enacted from 1536 onwards, known collectively as the Poor Laws. Through various modifications and later supplementary social insurance programmes, the Poor Laws continued to provide the main framework for relief of the poor until the enactment of the Welfare State in 1948.  Unfortunately, these laws came to be applied in such a way that they were often a punishment rather than a relief for poverty, with nineteenth-century workhouses becoming the emblem of their worst aspects.

The parish had been the basic unit of administration since the fourteenth century and through the enactment of the series of Poor Laws it's responsibilities and concomitant powers were enhanced. A person's parish of settlement – normally determined by place of birth, apprenticeship or, in the case of a woman, through marriage - would be responsible for paying them poor relief should the need ever arise. Parishes therefore had to manage the calls upon their funds very carefully and this resulted in the emergence of severe restrictions on granting settlement, while for the individual the right of settlement in a parish different to that in which they were legally settled became extremely difficult to obtain.

To quote from Norma Landau's fascinating article, "Who was subjected to the Laws of Settlement? Procedure under the Settlement Laws in Eighteenth-Century England":

 "According to the settlement act of 1662, the act which provided the framework for the laws of settlement, parish officers could remove from their parish to his [or her] parish of settlement any person who rented for under £10 a year and who was 'likely to be chargeable to the parish' he [or she] 'had come to inhabit'… [According to England's judges] a person 'likely to be chargeable' was a person who rented for less than £10 a year. As Mr Justice Powis stated in 1714, in a case that elaborated upon earlier precedent: 'The words likely to become chargeable, imply that a person is not in a tenement above ten pounds per annum; for if he be in such a tenement, no one can aver that he is likely to become chargeable'. Three years later, Mr Justice Eyre summarized previous opinion in what became the definitive statement of the law: 'living on a tenement under £10 a year, and likely to become chargeable, are convertible terms'. As most [people] rented for much less than £10 a year, the 1662 act allowed parish officers to prevent interparochial migration by [the vast majority of people]."

Put simply, the acid test as to whether a person could be subjected to the Poor Laws or not was wealth. The wealthy could come and go as they pleased. Not until 1697 did freeholders and copyholders whose tenement yielded less than £10 per annum obtain protection from the 1662 Act of Settlement when Lord Chief Justice Holt declared that it had never been intended to 'banish men from the enjoyment of their own lands'. Thus freehold and copyhold became a way to obtain legal settlement in a parish. The only other ways to acquire the right of settlement in a parish were to become an indentured apprentice, obtain a work contract of a duration greater than a year and a day, serve as a parish officer or pay taxes levied in the parish of residence, although the latter route to re-settlement was eventually closed off.

The place of legal settlement of widows was a grey area. Some parishes held that upon marriage a woman's place of legal settlement became and remained that of her husband, while others maintained that upon the death of her husband a woman's place of legal settlement reverted to what it had been before she married. It is therefore not unusual to see a widow being subjected to a settlement examination the day after her husband was buried!

Justices of the Peace and parish officers, known as Overseers of the Poor from 1579, applied the Poor Laws in order to regulate and monitor immigration to their parish, with the unemployed, those requiring poor relief and economically undesirable migrants such as single women (especially if pregnant), older workers, and men with large families being treated particularly harshly. As well as issues relating to settlement, the Overseers of the Poor also became involved in the apprenticeship of poor children, particularly orphans, children of poor widows and illegitimate children, and in brokering agreements for men (or their representatives) to contribute to the maintenance of their bastard children.

Overseers of the Poor therefore generated a wealth of documents of interest to local, social and family historians. Following is a list of documents from the records of the Overseers of the Poor of the Parish of Mosterton that have survived and that are available for consultation at the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester on microfilm.

SETTLEMENT & REMOVAL PAPERS

(DHC microfilm ref: MIC/R/1634)

Settlement Certificates

These provided the parish receiving an 'immigrant' with a safeguard against any claim upon its funds by the subject of the certificate or their family, and allowed the recipient parish to tax 'immigrants' without bestowing a settlement on them, while identifying the parish that would be responsible for relieving these 'immigrants' should they ever fall upon hard times. 

Settlement Examinations

Before a would-be emigrant could move, or an unwanted immigrant could be removed, a settlement examination had to be held before one of more Justices of the Peace to ascertain the parish of legal settlement of the individual.

08 Dec 1729; William HORSFORD, labourer

07 Feb 1753; John SYBLEY

19 Feb 1753; Margaret YEATMAN

18 Jan 1757; Sarah BARRET

21 Mar 1757; William LOVELASS

04 Jan 1794; Benjamin WHITING now residing in Holy Trinity, Guildford, Surrey

07 May 1840; Hannah PEARCE (copy of examination held at Bradford, Somerset)

16 Jan 1844; Henry CROFT

16 Jan 1844; Edward CROFT, concerning settlement of Henry CROFT, his brother

25 Nov 1844; Joseph DAVY of Broadwinsor

25 Nov 1844; Joe SPRAKE now residing in Stoke Abbott

Removal Orders from Mosterton

Removal Orders to Mosterton

APPRENTICESHIP INDENTURES

(DHC microfilm ref: MIC/R/1635)

BASTARDY PAPERS

Bastary Bonds

(DHC microfilm ref: MIC/R/ 1635)

Note: It was not always the child's reputed father who entered into a bastardy bond; churchwardens, overseers, friends or other benefactors might have undertaken the responsibility.

Maintenance Orders

(DHC microfilm ref: MIC/R/1661)

Bastardy Examinations

(DHC microfilm ref: MIC/R/ 1661)

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