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On the Parish? The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England <i>c</i>.1550-1750

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This book is available in Oxford Scholarship Online - view abstracts and keywords at book and chapter level.

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British & Irish History

Early Modern History - 1500 to 1700

Social & Cultural History

On the Parish?

The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England c.1550-1750

Steve Hindle

Clarendon Press Oxford Studies in Social History

536 pages | 216x138mm

978-0-19-927132-0 | Hardback | 05 August 2004

Also available as: Paperback

Price: £137.00

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The first attempt to measure the speed with which parish relief was implemented
Analyses the relationship between informal, semi-formal and formal relief systems
Examines the experience of relief among the poor themselves

On the Parish? is a study of the negotiations which took place over the allocation of poor relief in the rural communities of sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth century England. It analyses the relationships between the enduring systems of informal support through which the labouring poor made attempts to survive for themselves; the expanding range of endowed charity encouraged by the late sixteenth century statutes for charitable uses; and the developing system of parish relief co-ordinated under the Elizabethan poor laws. Based on exhaustive research in the archives of the trustees who administered endowments, of the overseers of the poor who assessed rates and distributed pensions, of the magistrates who audited and co-ordinated relief and of the royal judges who played such an important role in interpreting the Elizabethan statutes, the book reconstructs the hierarchy of provision of relief as it was experienced among the poor themselves. It argues that receipt of a parish pension was only the final (and by no means the inevitable) stage in a protracted process of negotiation between prospective pensioners (or 'collectioners', as they came to be called) and parish officers. This running theme is itself reflected in a series of chapters whose sequence seeks to mirror the experience of indigence, moving gradually (and by stages) from the networks of care provided by kin and neighbours into the bureaucracy of the parish relief system, emphasising in particular the importance of labour discipline in the thinking of parish officers.

By illuminating the workings of a relief system in which notions of entitlement were both under-developed and contested, On the Parish? provides historical perspective for contemporary debates about the rights and obligations of the poor in a society where the dismantling of the welfare state implies that there is, once again, no right to relief from cradle to grave.

Readership: Scholars and students of early modern British history.

The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.

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On the Parish?

The Micro-Politics of Poor Relief in Rural England c.1550-1750

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