| Description | Parish officers responsible for poor relief (a system generally established following the 1601 Relief of the Poor Act). To be eligible for poor relief a person had to be settled in the parish in which they were living, which meant they were born in the parish or employed in the parish for a year. Many parishes sought to avoid liability for poor relief through establishing that legal settlement should lie elsewhere, pursuing men who fathered a child out of wedlock, and apprenticing poor children to tradesmen. Each parish collected a poor-rate from its parishioners to pay for poor relief. Records may include poor rate books, accounts and disbursements, settlement certificates, settlement examinations, removal orders, bastardy examinations, orders and bonds, and apprenticeship indentures. Where people appealed against decisions of parish officers, a record may be found in the Quarter Sessions (see collection A1). Indexes to poor law records are also available in the searchroom at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. |