LOCAL RECORDS OF THE RURAL VESTRIES

It is probable that in those country parishes where distress was marked the new Poor Law was at least to some extent put into operation for the time being, in compliance with the Privy Council Order of 1598. Such early seventeenth-century rural vestry records as now exist, however, give no indication of any sudden or widespread change of policy. In many small parishes benefactions still met the normal claims of poverty, and were supplemented by a special collection, or by an occasional compulsory rate. The customary “collektors” certainly did not universally give place at once to legally appointed overseers, though it is probable that the change occurred in some of the larger villages, and spread during the second decade of the century.

At Linton the more important principles of the Act of 1597 had been adopted earlier, but had fallen into abeyance before 1590. The benefaction of that year, designed for the relief of the unemployed, remained legally in the hands of the widow until her death. In 1618, however, sensible of the needs of the parish, she voluntarily passed on the bequest to the overseers, who were by that date regularly elected. The stock of flax and hemp seems, as in former days, to have been distributed among homeworkers, as well perhaps as supplied to the residents in the old “task house” and gildhall, which continued to be let out cheaply or freely as lodgings.