About the Talk
If you were poor in the 18th century, or fell on hard times, the resposibility to look after you and your dependants fell on your home parish. But if you wanted or needed to move to another parish could you? Who would be responsible to aid you in times of trouble? The 1697 Settlement Act introduced a system for the poor wanting or needing to move to a different parsh.
The Law stationers in London quickly started to supply huge quantities of 'blank' settlement certificates to record the movement of the poor from parish to parish. Our speaker David Shaw has been examining surviving certificates in several county archives including the Cathedral Archives in Canterbury. In this talk he will be looking in particular at the situation in Deal.