Elizabethan Poor Law
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| Long title | An Acte for the Releife of the Poore. |
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| Citation | 43 Eliz 1 c 2 |
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Status: Repealed
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The Poor Relief Act 1601 (43 Eliz 1 c 2) was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601, popularly known as the "Elizabethan Poor Law", "43rd Elizabeth" or the "Old Poor Law" was passed in 1601 and created a national poor law system for England and Wales.
It formalised earlier practices of poor relief distribution in England and Wales and is generally considered a refinement of the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1597 that established Overseers of the Poor. The "Old Poor Law" was not one law but a collection of laws passed between the 16th and 18th centuries. The system's administrative unit was the parish. It was not a centralised government policy but a law which made individual parishes responsible for Poor Law legislation. The 1601 act saw a move away from the more obvious forms of punishing paupers under the Tudor system towards methods of "correction".
Several amending pieces of legislation can be considered part of the Old Poor Law. These include:
The origins of the Old Poor Law extend back into the 15th century with the decline of the monasteries and the breakdown of the medieval social structure. Charity was gradually replaced with a compulsory land tax levied at parish level.
Text of the Act Reginae Elizabethae Anno 43 Chapter 2
Relief under the Old Poor Law could take on one of two forms – indoor relief, relief inside a workhouse, or outdoor relief, relief in a form outside a workhouse. This could come in the form of money, food or even clothing. As the cost of building the different workhouses was great, outdoor relief continued to be the main form of relief in this period.
Relief for those too ill or old to work, the so-called 'impotent poor', was in the form of a payment or items of food ('the parish loaf') or clothing also known as outdoor relief. Some aged people might be accommodated in parish alms houses, though these were usually private charitable institutions. Meanwhile, able-bodied beggars who had refused work were often placed in Houses of Correction (indoor relief). However, provision for the many able-bodied poor in the workhouse, which provided accommodation at the same time as work, was relatively unusual, and most workhouses developed later. The 1601 Law said that poor parents and children were responsible for each other – elderly parents would live with their children.
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