Overseer Of The Poor
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Overseer Of The Poor
An overseer of the poor was an official who administered poor relief such as money, food, and clothing in England and various other countries which derived their law from England such as the United States. England In England, overseers of the poor administered poor relief such as money, food and clothing as part of the Poor Law system. The position was created by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1597. Overseers of the poor were often reluctant appointees who were unpaid, working under the supervision of a justice of the peace. The law required two overseers to be elected every Easter, and churchwardens or landowners were often selected. The new system of poor relief reinforced a sense of social hierarchy and provided a way of controlling the 'lower orders'. Overseers of the poor were replaced in the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, and replaced with boards of guardians, although overseers remained in some places as a method of collecting the poor rate. Duties Overseers had fou ...
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Poor Relief
In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of helping the poor. Alongside ever-changing attitudes towards poverty, many methods have been attempted to answer these questions. Since the early 16th century legislation on poverty enacted by the English Parliament, poor relief has developed from being little more than a systematic means of punishment into a complex system of government-funded support and protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state. Tudor era In the late 15th century, parliament took action on the growing problem of poverty, focusing on punishing people for being "vagabonds" and for begging. In 1495, during the reign of King Henry VII, Parliament enacted the Vagabond Act. This provided for officers of the law to arrest and hold "all such ...
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Board Of Guardians
Boards of guardians were ''ad hoc'' authorities that administered Poor Law in the United Kingdom from 1835 to 1930. England and Wales Boards of guardians were created by the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834, replacing the parish overseers of the poor established under the old poor law, following the recommendations of the Poor Law Commission. Boards administered workhouses within a defined poor law union consisting of a group of parishes, either by order of the Poor Law Commission, or by the common consent of the parishes. Once a union was established it could not be dissolved or merged with a neighbouring union without the consent of its board. Each board was composed of guardians elected by the owners and ''bona fide'' occupiers of land liable to pay the poor rate. Depending on the value of the property held, an elector could cast from one to three votes. Electors could nominate proxies to cast their vote in their absence. Where property was held by a corporation or company, it ...
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Poor Law In Britain And Ireland
Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little . Poverty can have diverse , , and causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in statistics or economics there are two main measures: '''' compares income against the amount needed to meet
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Plantations In The American South
A plantation complex in the Southern United States is the built environment (or complex) that was common on agricultural plantations in the American South from the 17th into the 20th century. The complex included everything from the main residence down to the pens for livestock. Until the abolition of slavery, such plantations were generally self-sufficient settlements that relied on the forced labor of enslaved people. Plantations are an important aspect of the history of the Southern United States, particularly the antebellum era (pre-American Civil War). The mild temperate climate, plentiful rainfall, and fertile soils of the southeastern United States allowed the flourishing of large plantations, where large numbers of enslaved Africans or African Americans were held captive and forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite. Today, as was also true in the past, there is a wide range of opinion as to what differentiated a plantation from a farm. Typically, ...
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Poormaster
Poormaster is the name of a now obsolete job position similar to that of Paymaster. Most of the states in the early United States had their own poormaster. The duties of a poormaster were to validate those who applied for relief and issue funds. The job was often a political sinecure before the 1930s. However the job was not without its risks. Those rejected often held grudges, and poormasters were sometimes guarded by police officers during the Great Depression. Harry L Barck was one such. He held the position of Poormaster for the city of Hoboken, New Jersey. He was killed by Joseph Scutellaro, a frustrated applicant, on February 15, 1938. Scutellaro, who killed Barck with a spindle, received two years in prison. The occupation ceased to exist after the 1940s, with the advent of social assistance Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social ...
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Poorhouse
A poorhouse or workhouse is a government-run (usually by a county or municipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy. Workhouses In England, Wales and Ireland (but not in Scotland), ‘workhouse’ has been the more common term. Before the introduction of the Poor Laws, each parish would maintain its own workhouse; often these would be simple farms with the occupants dividing their time between working the farm and being employed on maintaining local roads and other parish works. An example of one such is Strand House in East Sussex. In the early Victorian era (see Poor Law), poverty was seen as a dishonourable state. As depicted by Charles Dickens, a workhouse could resemble a reformatory, often housing whole families, or a penal labour regime giving manual work to the indigent and subjecting them to physical punishment. At many workhouses, men and women were split up with no communication between them. Furthermore, these workhouse systems we ...
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Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. Admitted to the union in 1791 as the 14th state, it is the only state in New England not bordered by the Atlantic Ocean. According to the 2020 U.S. census, the state has a population of 643,503, ranking it the second least-populated in the U.S. after Wyoming. It is also the nation's sixth-smallest state in area. The state's capital Montpelier is the least-populous state capital in the U.S., while its most-populous city, Burlington, is the least-populous to be a state's largest. For some 12,000 years, indigenous peoples have inhabited this area. The competitive tribes of the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and Iroquoian-speaking Mohawk were active in the area at the time of European encounter. During the 17th century, Fr ...
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Poorhouse
A poorhouse or workhouse is a government-run (usually by a county or municipality) facility to support and provide housing for the dependent or needy. Workhouses In England, Wales and Ireland (but not in Scotland), ‘workhouse’ has been the more common term. Before the introduction of the Poor Laws, each parish would maintain its own workhouse; often these would be simple farms with the occupants dividing their time between working the farm and being employed on maintaining local roads and other parish works. An example of one such is Strand House in East Sussex. In the early Victorian era (see Poor Law), poverty was seen as a dishonourable state. As depicted by Charles Dickens, a workhouse could resemble a reformatory, often housing whole families, or a penal labour regime giving manual work to the indigent and subjecting them to physical punishment. At many workhouses, men and women were split up with no communication between them. Furthermore, these workhouse systems we ...
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Poor Rate
In England and Wales the poor rate was a tax on property levied in each parish, which was used to provide poor relief. It was collected under both the Old Poor Law and the New Poor Law. It was absorbed into 'general rate' local taxation in the 1920s, and has continuity with the currently existing Council Tax. Introduction The Poor Relief Act 1601 consolidated earlier poor relief legislation and introduced a system of rating property. The introduction of the poor rate required the authorities, known as a vestry, in each parish to meet once a year to set the poor rate and to appoint an overseer of the poor to collect the rate. The justices of the peace at the quarter sessions had a role in checking the accounts of the poor rate. Reform The system of rating was subject to reform, such as excluding property outside of the parish in which a rate was paid. Because the poor rate was collected and spent locally within a single parish the notion of settlement was confirmed by the Poo ...
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Poor Law Amendment Act 1834
The ''Poor Law Amendment Act 1834'' (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the ''Poor Relief Act 1601'' and attempted to fundamentally change the poverty relief system in England and Wales (similar changes were made to the poor law for Scotland in 1845). It resulted from the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws, which included Edwin Chadwick, John Bird Sumner and Nassau William Senior. Chadwick was dissatisfied with the law that resulted from his report. The Act was passed two years after the ''Representation of the People Act 1832'' extended the franchise to middle class men. Some historians have argued that this was a major factor in the PLAA being passed. The Act has been described as "the classic example of the fundamental Whig-Benthamite reforming legislation of the period". Its theoretical basis w ...
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England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ...
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