From the sixteenth century onwards many laws were enacted in England and Wales to provide support for the poor and needy, and some parishes established poor houses in which to look after their homeless.
In 1834, with the creation of the Poor Law Commission, the whole of England and Wales was formed into Unions of parishes, and each Union built its own workhouse. The workhouses gained a reputation for cruelty in the eyes of the public, yet this system of social security was not abolished until the creation of the NHS in 1948. Being part of the government bureaucracy, detailed records were kept of everything: rate-payers, collectors of rates, workhouse overseers and the staff and inmates of workhouses, as well as poor people who were helped to move to the north of England to work in industry, those given assisted passage to Australia and children sent to Canada.
David T. Hawkings, one of Britain's leading genealogists and the author of "Criminal Ancestors and Railway Ancestors", here explains how these records can be used to discover details of your ancestry, providing an important, must-have resource for genealogists and family historians who want to make use of this comprehensive repository of information.
Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Foreword
Introduction
1. Four Champions of the Poor
2. Parish Accounts
3. Bastardy
4. Settlement Examinations, Removal Orders and Settlement Certificates
5. Pauper Apprentices
6. Union Records
7. Union Officials and Other Local Officers
8. Union Staff
9. Correspondence
10. Ratepayers
11. Workhouse Dietary
12. Out Relief
13. Sickness and Death
14. Audit and Visit Reports
15. Assisted Migration to the North of England
16. Assisted Emigration
17. Early State Education
18. Vaccination Against Smallpox
19. Pauper Lunatics
20. Health and Safety in Workhouses and hte Community
21. Official Reports
Bibliography
Appendix 1. Acts of Parliament Relating to the Poor Law
Appendix 2. Lists of Poor Law Unions in England and Wales
Appendix 3. Registers of Admission to Lunatic Asylums
Appendix 4. The Old Monetary System
Appendix 5. Websites for Record Offices in England and Wales
Index of Place Names and Ships
Index of Personal Names
