SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



wapentake of Staincross ought to be assessed to maintain the poor of Barnsley,*' and resolved that 

 the money obtained from the wapentake must be returned/" But the most important and valuable 

 records concerning the management of the poor contained in the roll are the so-called Knaresborough 

 orders. The second of these orders is especially interesting ; it shows that the people of the Knares- 

 borough district preferred the old voluntary system to the new money rating. They petitioned that 

 'the poore may be suffered to begg and aske relief abroad throughout the parishe.' The justices 

 granted the request, urging as an excuse for their strained interpretation of the clause in the statute 

 dealing with the subject, ' for that many are able to give releefe which are not able to give money.' " 



Naturally the chief object of the parochial officials was to keep down the poor-rate. There was 

 therefore the very strongest incentive for them to try to prove that anyone in need of poor relief was 

 a vagabond or vagrant,^^ not born in the parish, and that therefore he was to be sent to his native place. 

 It was by no means improbable that on his way thither he would be arrested and sent to the house 

 of correction, for the maintenance of these institutions fell on the county, not the parish,^^ so that 

 this method of shifting their responsibilities was popular. After the passing of the Bill of I597> so 

 great was the desire of each parish to put the onus of maintenance on to some other parish that the 

 highways were crowded with these homeless and houseless creatures seeking a domicile.^* One of 

 the Knaresborough orders dealt with this difficulty in a summary way. As people after being 

 domiciled for some twenty years are being driven away, therefore it is enacted that a residence of 

 three years entitles people to relief.'* 



The Sessions Rolls give no details of any schemes of work for the unemployed for the West 

 Riding, but the justices order the wardens and overseers ' to enforce every of them refusinge to 

 ivorke, or found idle and out of worke, to labour In such sorte and with such personnes as they 

 shall thinke fitt.*° These orders do not touch upon the question of the erection of abiding and working 

 houses '■' for the poor, though from one of the orders issued by the justices it is clear that some 

 house of the kind was at Doncaster. The order is an excellent example of the ruthless manner in 

 which in their anxiety to rid themselves of the impotent poor the officials acted. 



Whereas one Gregorie Shawe late of Dancaster hath dwelt and remayned in Dancaster for a longe 

 space and hath during that tyme bene twise married and afterwards placed in an hospital], notwithstand- 

 ing all which the Maior of Dancaster hath by colour of the statute for the releif of poore, taken hym 

 forth of the said Hospitall and sent hym to the place of his birth contrary to the meanyng of that statute : 

 Yt is therefore ordered that a Warr. p. Cur. shalbe made to the said Maior to receive hym agayne and 

 provide for his releif according to the said Statute.'* 



It has been suggested that these orders were drawn up for the guidance of the county justices 

 by the Council of the North.'' The North Riding Quarter Sessions Records throw a flood of light 

 on the administration of the Poor Law during the Stuart period. A pathetic case of filial ingratitude 

 was brought to the notice of the justices at Helmsley in 1619. 



Whereas it appears to the Justices at this Sessions that John Simon, an old man, hath sett over his 

 whole estate unto his sonne Will Simon, and that since his said sonne, being very wealthie and of good 

 abilitie, hath suffered his said father to live in great wante and miserie, and doth carie himself verie 

 disobedientlie and unnaturally towardes his said father : and whereas the said justices, in open Sessions 

 did, according to the law, order that the said Will Simon shall relelve his father from time to time as 

 should be thought fitt by the justices and shall be bound with good suerties in good summes of monie 

 until his said father shall release him : and for as much as the. said Will Simon did in Courte obstinatelie 

 refuse to perform the said order, he was committted to York Castle."" 



Transgressors against the enactment that each cottage should have 4 acres of ground attached 

 to it, a measure preventive of pauperism, frequently appeared before the justices. The year 1607 

 furnishes fourteen examples of breach of this law," but the cases are rare from that date to 1634, 

 they cease entirely until 1647, when they recur again, and are frequent until 1672.°'' 



The houses of correction at Pickering, Thirsk, and Richmond are frequently referred to."' The 

 first suggestion with regard to such an institution at Richmond was made in 1610, but it was not 

 until 1619 " that it was in working order. George Shawe of Leeds, clothier, was appointed master 

 at a salary of ^^50 a year. The following year an order for looms and irons to be placed there 

 was given."' Evidently Richmond was providing profitable employment for its paupers. 



" J. Lister, West Riding Sessions Rolls (Yorks. Arch. Assoc. Rec. Ser. iii), 26. «> Ibid. 75. 



" Mr. Lister thinks that this system of voluntary poor rehef was not adopted in many — if any other 



divisions of the Riding. Ibid. p. rxxi. 



" Stat. 39 Eliz. cap. 4. " Stat. 18 Eliz. cap. 3 . "J. Lister, op. cit. p. xxxiii. 



''Sessions R.^xtsu^.%S■ 'Mbid. 86. " Stat. 39 Eliz. cap. 5. '« SwzW j?. ut sup loc 



" Ibid. p. XXX. «" North RidingQuarter Sessions R. ii, no. «' Ibid, i, 68, 92, 93, 106 108 



" E. M. Leonard, op. cit. 170. " garter Sessions Rec. (N. R. Rec. Soc.) v, 137, 210. ' 



" Ibid, ii, no, 229. «» Ibid. 235, 26 Apr. 1620. 



3 473 60 



