In 1662 an Act of Settlement was passed to define which parish had
responsibility for a poor person. A child's birthplace was its place
of settlement, unless of course its mother had a settlement certificate
from somewhere else stating that the unborn child was included on the
certificate. However from the age of 7 upwards the child could have been
apprenticed and gained a settlement for itself. Also, the child could
have obtained a settlement for itself by service by the time it was 16.
Typically, a legitimate child would take it's father's place of settlement,
and an illegitimate child would be settled in its place of birth until:
He inhabited (slept in) the same parish for 40 consecutive days,
and was bound as an apprentice by Indenture.
After 1697, the poor were allowed to enter any parish in search of work,
so long as they had a Settlement Certificate signed by the church wardens
and overseers of their place of settlement and two magistrates guaranteeing
to receive them back should they become chargeable.
No one was allowed to move from town to town without the appropriate
documentation. If a person entered a parish in which he or she did not
have official settlement, and seemed likely to become chargeable to the
new parish, then an examination would be made by the justices (or parish
overseers). From this examination on oath, the justices would determine
if that person had the means to sustain himself and, if not, which was
that person's parish of settlement. The results of the examination were
documented in an Examination Paper, but few of these have survived.
As a result of the examination the intruder would then either be allowed
to stay, or would be removed by means of what was known as a Removal Order.
A married woman was normally settled with her husband (exeptions abound).
Complaints about someone had to be made by churchwardens and overseers
within forty days before a magistrate. Settlement papers contain details
of every event having a bearing on settlement, from cradle to present
circumstances, age, parentage, birthplace, apprenticeship, employment,
marriage, names, ages of children, etc. were all written down. They were
kept by the parish (normally in the Parish Chest) as evidence of settlement
someplace else.
GENUKI
