SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



The scope of the relief given was gradually growing much wider, fore- 

 shadowing the practice of the eighteenth century. At Aylesbury payments 

 were made to men who were either ill themselves, or whose families 

 were ill. In 1671 there are several such entries, including payments to 

 Henry Pratt, the bone-setter, who received $s. for setting a shoulder or thigh. 

 Medical relief seems to have been given freely to the families of able-bodied 

 men, and indeed the above charges must have been beyond the means of an 

 ordinary labourer getting at most is. a day, but such assistance was also given 

 to men who could hardly have been in great need, such as the miller who had 

 3*. to take his child to the bone-setter. 



Pest-houses in times of plague were also provided by the overseers, and 

 were carefully isolated and watched. At Aylesbury the greater part of the 

 expenses connected with the pest-house were the wages of day and night 

 watchmen, while the inmates seem to have been terribly neglected. Food 

 was provided, but the overseers were forced to pay compensation for the 

 sheep-racks and gates burnt at the pest-house to provide firewood. They 

 were not permanent institutions, but were set up whenever the necessity 

 arose, the last mention of one at Aylesbury being in 1781. 



The theory also was gaining ground that if a man could not find work 

 he must be supported by the parish, in great contrast to the views advanced 

 by the inhabitants of Stoke Hundred 100 in 16367, that when the paper-mills 

 were stopped the manufacturer must himself provide for his workmen, since 

 he had brought them to the mills. In 1679 two orders were made at the 

 Easter quarter sessions illustrating this change : at Whitchurch the relief to 

 Thomas Curtis was to cease, but the inhabitants were to keep him in work ; 

 at Ivinghoe there was a similar order to stop an allowance of 6J. a month to 

 Richard Fowler, provided that the parishioners maintain his children and 

 find him work. More severe orders were still issued. At West Wycombe a 

 man had been the recipient of 2s. 6d. a week, but it appeared to the court that 

 he was ' a man of very able body to work for his own livelyhood.' 



An Act of Parliament was passed in 1691 in consequence of the growing 

 laxity of the overseers in giving relief, ordering that a register of the paupers 801 

 in each parish should be kept, with the amounts they each received, and 

 should be produced once a year at a vestry meeting. No one else might 

 receive parish relief except by the authority of one justice of the peace or by 

 an order of the Bench at quarter sessions. This clause, far from effecting 

 the economy intended in the statute, was the main cause of many of the evils 

 which grew up in the eighteenth century, since the practice arose of any 

 magistrate ordering relief to an applicant without consultation with the parish 

 officers. The result was, naturally, a great deal of friction between the two 

 poor-law authorities, besides an increase in the rates. 



The change in the attitude of the justices is shown clearly in the absence 

 of orders at quarter sessions restraining relief given by the overseers, which 

 had hitherto been frequent. Still, in the parishes themselves, attempts were 

 made to keep down the rates, which had risen steadily at the end of the 

 seventeenth century. At Aylesbury the total disbursements in the first 

 account were under 156, but in 1702 they had risen to 326 7 s - IO ^- I n 



*" S.P. Dom. Chat. I, vol. 34.4, No. 40. 



*"' A lilt of pensioners for relief was kept at Ajlesbury as early as 1679 ; Quart. Seas. Rec. 1679. 



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