Poor Relief Act 1662
The Poor Relief Act 1662 (14 Car 2 c 12) was an Act passed in 1662 by the Cavalier Parliament (which lasted from 8 May 1661 until January 1679). Its full title is “An Acte for the better Releife of the Poore of this Kingdom”. It is also known as the Settlement Act.
History
Since the Poor Law Act of 1601 (for details see Poor Laws), each parish had become responsible for collecting the poor rates (a tax on property) with the help of which they were to provide relief for the poor. Some parishes were more generous than others which had the effect that many poor people moved there. This then put a strain on the ratepayers. To put a stop to this ‘migration’ the Poor Relief Act 1662 was passed.
Content
The Act said that every person had a place of settlement—one particular parish—allocated to them. If they got in need of Poor Relief, they could go to the respective overseer. If for one reason or another they wanted to leave their parish, the parish was supposed to hand out a Settlement Certificate. People usually stayed in their home parish, because these were often unwilling to issue Settlement Certificates, since this meant that in case the person got in need of Poor Relief and was too sick or poor to make the way back home, the home parish had to pay for costs that arose from getting them there. But people did not have to stay in their home parish for the rest of their life. If they fulfilled certain conditions, they could gain the right to claim another parish as their place of settlement. Those conditions were:
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