Poor Relief Act 1662

Poor Relief Act 1662
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Short title	Settlement Act 1662
Long title	An Act for the better Relief of the Poor of this Kingdom
Enacted by	Parliament of England
Year	1662
Citation	14 Cha. 2. c. 12
Royal assent	1662
Repealed by	Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1966

Poor Relief Act 1662 The Poor Relief Act 1662, commonly known as the Settlement Act 1662, was an English statute passed by the Parliament of England during the reign of Charles II of England that redefined legal settlement for determining parish responsibility for paupers. The Act followed earlier measures such as the Poor Relief Act 1601 and interacted with later reforms linked to the Industrial Revolution, the English Civil War aftermath, and social policy debates in the House of Commons and House of Lords.

Background and legislative context

The Act emerged against the backdrop of post‑Restoration politics involving figures like Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and controversies in the Convention Parliament and subsequent sessions of the Parliament of England. Debates referenced precedents from the Elizabethan Poor Law and the Poor Relief Act 1597, as magistrates, overseers of the poor and vestries in parishes such as St. Giles, Cripplegate and St. Martin-in-the-Fields sought clearer rules on settlement to allocate burdens. Economic pressures from agrarian shifts, seasonal migration to towns such as London, Bristol, and Leeds, and events including the Great Plague of London and the Great Fire of London informed legislators. Prominent legal authorities like Sir Matthew Hale and decisions from courts including the King's Bench shaped interpretations that the Act codified.

Provisions of the Act

The statute specified criteria for legal settlement, listing modes such as birth within a parish, apprenticeship to a resident master, marriage with a settled wife, hiring for a year and a day, and receiving parish alms or poor relief. The Act empowered parish officers to issue removal orders to transfer indigent persons back to their parish of settlement, affecting residents of townships, hamlets, and liberties like Whitechapel and Southwark. It created formal procedures involving justices of the peace sitting in quarter sessions and required documentation such as settlement certificates and bastardy orders issued under powers that linked to the Court of Chancery and local manorial courts. Provisions referenced customary rights and property arrangements familiar to jurists from the Court of Common Pleas and landowners in counties like Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Administration and implementation

Implementation relied on local actors: overseers of the poor, parish vestries, churchwardens, and justices of the peace, many drawn from gentry families associated with county administration in Sussex, Norfolk, and Cornwall. Enforcement used removal warrants issued by quarter sessions and contested in courts including the Court of King’s Bench. Settlement disputes produced litigation involving solicitors in the Inns of Court—notably the Middle Temple and Inner Temple—and influenced legal practitioners such as Sir William Blackstone in later commentaries. Urban parishes like St. Pancras and industrializing towns such as Manchester developed administrative practices including poor rates and subscription lists to meet liabilities under the Act, while rural manors exercised influence via lordly patrons and parish constables.

Impact and consequences

The Act shaped demographic movement by discouraging seasonal and permanent migration to expanding centres like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Glasgow and by creating incentives for local landed elites to control poor relief costs. It contributed to parish rivalry and litigation exemplified in cases heard before the Judges of Assize and the Court of Exchequer Chamber, affecting paupers, apprentices, and foundlings. Social commentators and reformers from multiple generations, including Thomas Malthus and later Charles Dickens in literary critique, referenced the parish settlement regime when discussing poverty and social order. The settlement rules influenced colonial administration in English colonies in North America and informed nineteenth‑century debates culminating in the work of Sir George Nicholls and reform commissions that reviewed poor law practice.

Amendments and repeal

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the 1662 rules were modified by statutes such as the Settlement Act Amendment Act 1774 and heavily reviewed during the inquiries leading to the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834. The 1834 reform centralized poor relief under Boards of Guardians influenced by commissioners like Edwin Chadwick and shifted policy away from parish settlement toward workhouses and union administration in Poor Law Unions. Remaining provisions were gradually repealed or superseded by nineteenth‑ and twentieth‑century statutes, with final vestiges removed under consolidation and repeal measures including the Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1966.

Category:1662 in law Category:History of welfare in the United Kingdom