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SETTLEMENT and REMOVAL

Confirming the right for poor relief

The documentation associated with the poor laws often provides valuable key information for family historians; in particular, information which relates to an ancestor's parish of birth. The documents can also help you determine how and when your ancestor moved around and whether it was over short or long distances.

The parish obligation of caring for the poor started with an Act of Parliament in 1597, but the 1601 Poor Law Act enhanced the original Act by obliging the parish to relieve the aged and helpless, to care for unprotected children in encourage them in habits of industry and provide work for the able-bodied who could not work in their usual trade.

Under the laws of settlement following the 1601 Act, people were only entitled to claim poor relief in their legal place of settlement. Prior to this, anyone was able to work and was free to move wherever they wanted - but this changed in 1662. The concept of settlement was that each person was settled in one parish and that parish was responsible for them.

It was the records generated under the Act of Settlement and Removal 1662 that proved entitlement to poor relief through the issuing of settlement certificates. These certificates confirmed the parish of legal settlement - that is the parish to which the family belonged - and as such, that parish had the legal responsibility to provide for their relief. The purpose of the certificate confirmed the right of a person to live unhindered and receive relief in that parish.

Conditions for legal settlement

A person’s parish of settlement was not always the same as their parish of birth; the legislation stated that if a person fitted certain conditions, they could claim a different parish as their parish of settlement. A person gained the right of legal settlement under the following conditions:

A new-born legitimate child took the father’s settlement, regardless of the place of birth. An illegitimate child’s parish of settlement was the parish of birth.

A parish apprentice from the age of seven who served and lived in the same parish for forty consecutive days.

A married trader or person renting a smallholding or farm who had stayed for twelve months, paid parish rates and rented property over £10 per year.

An unmarried man who had worked for a year in the parish.

A woman took the settlement of her husband and a widow who remarried took her new husband’s parish of settlement.

Servants who stayed one year from the date of hiring and left with full wages.

A person who inherited an estate of land and lived on the estate for more than forty days.

Overseers could remove a newcomer to their parish if he did not find work within forty days.

For example, a parish inhabitant who only worked through the harvest period or was otherwise deemed a temporary inhabitant had to have a settlement certificate from his home parish indicating that they would take him back. If he did not have this certificate, he was subject to removal. After a forty-day residence, a stranger could claim settlement in his new parish.

After the Settlement Act of 1662, people could obtain a settlement in any parish following the above criteria. Anyone not complying could be removed to their original parish. After 1697 people had to carry a settlement certificate with them to show that their parish of legal settlement acknowledged that the person belonged to that parish. The law was categoric that any person must have legal settlement in order to qualify for parish relief. Legal settlement became the main principle of poor relief.

The New Poor Law Act 1834 removed the provision of poor relief from the parish although parish officers remained in charge of settlement issues until 1865. Both the overseers of the parish and the poor law union Board of Guardians might provide some relief but it was more usual for our ancestors in need to be sent to the workhouse.

Settlement certificates

These documents vary depending on the year of issue and the preferences of the parish; some were handwritten entirely. They were by their nature loose documents and were usually kept in the parish chest.

The certificate was issued solely to identify an individual’s or a family’s parish of legal settlement. They were handed to an individual or head of a family when they moved away from their parish of legal settlement. The certificate was usually surrendered to the overseer of the new parish of residence in case the individual or family ever needed relief. It was a kind of insurance so if the person or family required assistance, the parish of legal settlement had to pay for the relief or take them back.

In accordance with the 1697 Act, certificates were generally pre-printed documents, with details of the individuals, whose settlement was being confirmed, entered on the form; this was then signed by the churchwardens and overseers of the poor granting the certificate along with signatures of two Justices of the Peace.

Obtaining the six signatures required for a legally-binding certificate was often time-consuming. The document was only valid for a single move because the certificate was addressed to the overseers and churchwardens of a named parish to which the individual or family was moving. A further certificate and more signatures would be required when an individual wanted to move again.

Settlement examination

Quite often, an individual or family would leave their parish of legal settlement without first obtaining a settlement certificate. When officers of the new parish became aware of strangers living in the parish, the overseers of the poor undertook a settlement examination to establish their parish of legal settlement and question them about their finances. This was because these new people might need parish relief because of illegitimacy, illness or suspected vagrancy. The examination usually took place under oath before the Overseer of the Poor and a Justice of the Peace.

The resulting settlement examination record is a rich resource for family historians because it may include details of a person's birthplace, working history, places where they worked, usually with dates (or at least the year), the names of wife and dependent children with their ages. The records should include information about their most recent whereabouts and often details about their life. They can become a potted history of the family which will aid the tracing of migration.

The majority of settlement examinations were conducted under formal conditions and findings of the process of an informal investigation, followed by the drafting of a formulaic document, which was finally signed by the Justice of the Peace. An examination was frequently a prelude to removal from the parish.

Settlement examinations can normally be found within the parish chest records or the local Quarter Sessions court records.

Removal order

If the settlement examination proved that the stranger was not a legally entitled to remain in that parish and became a potential liability, then a removal order would be issued and handed to the parish constable who would remove them and send them back to their parish of legal settlement. However, as there was no settlement certificate, the purported parish of legal settlement might not take the family back; they could dispute the claim through the Quarter Sessions. This would inevitably result in a further record containing useful genealogical information. A record of any appeal will be found in the Quarter Session court records.

The system of settlement and removal was modified over the years by various Acts of Parliament, and to some degree, precedence from case law existed throughout the eighteenth century.

One of the significant changes to the settlement system before the 1834 New Poor Law was passed actually originated from 1795; this was when removal was restricted to those actually applying for relief, irrespective of whether or not they had a settlement certificate. Sometimes baptism and marriage certificates are attached to the records.

The parish to which a pauper was removed could appeal and seek to overturn the order which, in difficult cases, resulted in a further appeal to the King's Bench although this did not happen very often.

Using the records of settlement for famil history research

The survival rate of settlement papers is patchy because most are loose papers and would have been lost, destroyed or even stolen over time. In some record offices surviving records are bundled together by parish but some are individually indexed and catalogued. The certificate may provide little direct genealogical information but it does place a person or family in a specific place at a particular time; this could be imperative in tracing migration. It could also provide the wife’s name if this was not known. The certificate could also indicate that the marriage took place in their parish of settlement. Removal orders were often issued to single pregnant women, so the examination and removal papers might state the purported father and further open up a paternal line of your research.

For both settlement certificates and removal orders, there are two chances of being able to locate the documents. It is probable that the originating parish would keep a copy for its own reference, particularly if a pauper family were returned to the parish as a result of removal. Similarly, a copy of the removal order could have been retained by the issuing parish. The parish where the family ended up would have collected the certificate or received the certificate when a claim was made. In the case of removal, the parish receiving the pauper would retain the removal order. The existence of a certificate or order in an archive collection is a good clue to some action having been taken by the parish.

Looking at all these three documents in sequence will enable you to analyse the migration of the individual or family and provide vital clues for your research. You should in particular examine the three documents below:

Settlement certificate
Settlement examination
Removal order

In you research you may also need to look at other sources such as overseers' accounts, militia relief orders, bastardy papers and even documents associated with vagrancy. Some parishes may have treated new inhabitants as vagrants as opposed to dealing with them under the settlement system, in which case the documentation is completely different, both in form and legislation affecting them.

This article was contributed by Ian Waller from Family History Federation.

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