3 - Pauper Tales

Summary

And your peticioner at some former sessions applyed herselfe by her peticion to your good worships who was pleased to grant her first eight pence per weeke and after that was pleased to grant her four pence more addicionally per weeke for fyreing, shee being soe old and not able to provide her selfe fyer; and when your peticioner had soe obtained your said order and shewed it to the then overseer of the poore there, one John Braithwaite who paid your peticioner twelve pence per weeke accordingly for about tenn weekes, and then desired a sight of the said order whereupon your peticioner shewed it him, and he putt the same up in his pocket and would never redeliver the same againe to your peticioner. Since which your peticioner has been hindered of her said allowance, and kept from her subsistance soe allowed by your good worshipps.

Petition of Agnes Braithwaite of Field Head (Michaelmas 1702)

The operation of the Poor Law left an impressive documentary trail. Overseers kept accounts and compiled censuses, the poor themselves launched petitions for relief, JPs undertook local investigations, settlement examinations were taken and certificates produced. Removal orders and apprenticeship indentures were lodged in parish chests across the country, while occasional references to the system pepper many diaries, letters and autobiographies. It was a system in which written documentation was critical, hence Agnes Braithwaite's safe keeping of her relief order, and hence her difficulty in claiming her pension once it had been confiscated.