Genealogy Chat

In 1601 under the Poor Act parishes were given responsibilty to introduce a system of rating and to use this money to aid the needy poor of the parish.
The aid could be given in "Kind" or "Money"
Also the rates money could be used to organise training and education for pauper apprentices.
Obviously each parish only wanted to spend it's rates on it's own poor, not incomers from another parish.
So in 1662 The Settlement Act stipulated that newcomers to a parish "Likely to be Chargeble" ie get too poor to keep themselves by illness or lack of work. Could be REMOVED .
It was decreed that everyone should have a Place of Settlement to which they belonged, so that should hard times come on people living in another parish rather than their Place of Settlement, that parish could then send them back to their Place of Settlement, rather than support these hard up Newcomers.
If a person or family after 1662 wished to move to another place to live and work, they now needed to get a document from their Place of Settlement which would act almost as an Insurance Document for the new Parish, the document would promise to pay if needful for the poor relief of the newcomers.
SETTLEMENT was gained by different means
You could be born in a parish, or serve an apprenticeship there, or you could work for an entire year in a parish not a short year but an entire year.and receive your wages as well.
If you were a woman, you took your father's Place of Settlement, or if married your husband's Place of Settlement.
I also believe that if you were born illegitimately in a parish you took that as your Place of Settlement, so parishes were very keen to get rid of pregnant poor women.... long hikes to their Places of Settlement took place of very pregnant females...
If later your mother became indigent again and needed Poor Relief in her Place of Settlement,or any other parish, at about 7 years of age you were sent back to your own Place of Settlement.....where you had been born illegitimately.