The Poor Law Act

The Poor Law Act 1601 also known as the Elizabethan Poor Law and Old Poor Law (after the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834) formalised earlier practices of poor relief. It created a collectivist national system, paid for by levying local rates (or property taxes). It made provision:

• To board out (making a payment to families willing to accept them) those young children who were orphaned or whose parents could not maintain them,

• To provide materials to "set the poor on work"

• To offer relief to people who were unable to work – mainly those who were "lame, impotent, old, blind", and

• "The putting out of children to be apprentices".


Relief for those too ill or old to work, the so called impotent poor, was in the form of a payment or items of food ('the parish loaf') or clothing. Some aged people might be accommodated in parish alms houses, though these were usually private charitable institutions. Meanwhile able-bodied beggars who had refused work were often placed in houses of correction. However, provision for the many able-bodied poor in the workhouse, which provided accommodation at the same time as work, was relatively unusual, and most workhouses developed later. Assistance given to the deserving poor that did not involve an institution like the workhouse, was known as 'outdoor relief'.


There was much variation in the application of the law and there was a tendency for the destitute to migrate towards the more generous parishes, usually situated in the towns. This led to the Settlement Act 1662 also known as the Poor Relief Act 1662 - this allowed relief only to established residents of a parish - mainly through birth, marriage and apprenticeship. A pauper applicant had to prove a 'settlement'.If they could not, they were removed to the next parish that was nearest to the place of their birth, or where they might prove some connection. Some paupers were moved hundreds of miles. Although each parish that they passed through was not responsible for them, they were supposed to supply food and drink and shelter for at least one night. The Act was criticised in later years for its effect in distorting the labour market, through the power given to parishes to let them remove 'undeserving' poor.


Some of the legislation was punitive. In 1697 an act was passed requiring the poor to wear a "badge" of red or blue cloth on the right shoulder with an embroidered letter "P" and the initial of their parish. However, this was often disregarded.