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CHAPTER XIV - RELIEF OUTSIDE THE WORKHOUSE, 1660–1782

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

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Summary

THE PENSION LIST. BADGING THE POOR

Apart from workhouse enactments and statutes relating to settlement the changes in the general Poor Law between 1660 and 1782 were of minor importance. In local administration attention was to a still greater extent concentrated upon the chess-board problems of removal. Relief must, however, be given to those whose claims were indisputable, and for these the dole and pension continued for more than two centuries the most ubiquitous form of assistance.

The unlimited power exercised by overseers in the selection of persons for the pension list was recognised by an Act of 1692. Such persons, it was stated, were frequently chosen “upon frivolous pretences and for private ends”, and were retained upon the list “notwithstanding the occasion or pretence of their receiving collection hath ceased”. It was therefore enacted that the list of recipients should be drawn up at a public meeting of the vestry, held yearly or more frequently, and that no other person should receive “collection” except by order of a justice or of Quarter Sessions.

In order further to safeguard the rate-payers against an unwarranted growth of the pension list, an Act of 1697 required that all persons in receipt of public relief should wear badges openly upon the right sleeve.

It was the general opinion that in the course of the ensuing twenty or thirty years justices in their turn had grown careless, and in many instances ordered relief without due investigation.

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

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