parishes throughout England and Wales, each based on a parish church. For instance, orphans were taken to orphanages, the ill were admitted to hospitals, the deserving poor were taken to local almshouses, and the idle poor were taken to poorhouses or workhouses where they had to work. Eastwood, David. The Myth of the Old Poor Law and the Making of the New. Journal of Economic History 23 (1963): 151-84. Queen Elizabeth proclaimed a set of laws designed to maintain order and contribute to the general good of the kingdom: the English Poor Laws. Arguments over which parish was responsible for a pauper's poor relief and concerns over migration to more generous parishes led to the passing of the Settlement Act 1662 which allowed relief only to established residents of a parish mainly through birth, marriage and apprenticeship. Parents were required to support their children and grandchildren. The cost of the current system was increasing from the late 18th century into the 19th century. Returning soldiers further added to pressures on the Poor Law system. The increase in seasonal unemployment, combined with the decline in other sources of income, forced many agricultural laborers to apply for poor relief during the winter. County-level cross-sectional data suggest that, on average, real wages for day laborers in agriculture declined by 19 percent from 1767-70 to 1795 in fifteen southern grain-producing counties, then remained roughly constant from 1795 to 1824, before increasing to a level in 1832 about 10 percent above that of 1770 (Bowley 1898). During the interwar period the Poor Law served as a residual safety net, assisting those who fell through the cracks of the existing social insurance policies. poor law 1601 bbc bitesize. Shame also stalked the drawing rooms of polite society, whenever a writer like Dickens or Henry Mayhew exposed the living conditions of the "great unwashed", half-starved and crammed into stinking, unsanitary slums. The effect of the Crusade can be seen in Table 1. Click here for our comprehensive article on the Tudors. The Speenhamland system was popular in the south of England. Relief expenditures were financed by a tax levied on all parishioners whose property value exceeded some minimum level.
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poor law 1601 bbc bitesize