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CHAPTER XVI - CONSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL POLICY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

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Summary

The primary aim of this book has been to examine in detail the way in which the Poor Law actually worked in the hands of a variety of local authorities within the limits of Cambridgeshire. Frequently, as has been seen, the laws produced effects undreamed of by their framers. Probably no social service played so large a part as did the Poor Law in moulding the constitution of the authorities which administered it; and it was in turn moulded by them. It is therefore fitting that the more outstanding features of the constitutional machinery itself should be traced here.

THE COUNTY

The inclusion within the bounds of Cambridgeshire of the extensive franchise of the Bishop of Ely—among special jurisdictions second only to Durham in importance—makes it possible to institute certain comparisons regarding the development and social effects of gradual changes in county government. For most administrative purposes throughout the period 1597–1834, as for centuries before, the Isle of Ely was exempt from the jurisdiction of what may be called Cambridgeshire proper, the Bishop claiming prerogatives normally vested in the Crown. The Isle had its own Chief Justice and its own justices of the peace and other county officers. In the main, however, the legal framework of administration here was based on the constitution of an ordinary county.

The only other authority claiming exclusion from the jurisdiction of the county was the borough of Cambridge.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1934

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