After the Civil War a part only of the system survived. There are thus grounds for believing that never since the days of Charles I. have we had either so much provision of work for the able-bodied or so complete a system of looking after the more needy classes when they were suffering from the effects of fire, pestilence and famine. For this reason alone the history of the poor at this period is especially interesting, and it is also at this time that the history of the poor is more directly connected than usual with the history of the nation as a whole.
We will trace as in the preceding periods the history of legislation and of the action of the Privy Council. But the relief of the poor is a matter which can only be efficiently administered by men who have a great knowledge of detail. The action of the Privy Council would have had very little effect unless there had been an efficient system of local government.
We will therefore examine the local machinery of administration as well as the central and will see what kind of work was done by judges, justices and overseers in regard to the relief of the poor. We shall then know who did the duties with regard to relief now performed by the Local Government Board, Boards of Guardians, magistrates, and relieving officers.
We must then regard the system of poor relief from another point of view and see what kind of relief could be obtained both in the country and in the towns by the different classes of poor. This will include the help afforded to the whole of the poorer population in years of scarcity as well as the means that were taken in ordinary times to pension the old, to train and maintain children, and to find work for the unemployed.
Lastly we will endeavour to determine when and where the administrative machinery was really set in motion and how far the relief afforded to the different classes of poor was given all over the country. The answer to these questions will enable us to see why it is that in England poor laws were not only made but administered, while in some other countries they were not administered even after they had been made.
[Sidenote: 2. Legislation from 1597 to 1644.]
The work accomplished with regard to the poor by Parliament was unimportant during the period from 1597 to 1644 but some slight changes were made in the law. It was in 1601 that the statute on which our system of poor relief has since rested was passed in its final form. This law, known as the 43 Eliz. c. 2, is often regarded as inaugurating new methods of dealing with the poor, but as a matter of fact few important legal enactments have initiated fewer innovations. It is simply a re-enactment with very slight alterations of the statute of 1597-8. The clause of the statute of 1597 which declared all beggars to be rogues if they asked for anything more than food was omitted in 1601, while the liability of parents to support their children, imposed in 1597, was in 1601 extended to grandparents also. Otherwise the slight differences between the two Acts consist chiefly of modifications of detail, designed to render certain doubtful points of law[302]. This statute of 1601 was itself only passed as a temporary measure but it was continued by the Parliaments both of James I. and of Charles I. It remained by far the most important regulation concerning the relief of the poor until the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834[303], and is in force as the basis of our system of Poor Relief at the present day.