Settlement Certificates: the Poor Law admin. in Kent - REPORT+HANDOUT

The Recording of this talk has already been broadcast.

A Handout for this talk is in the 'Kent FHS Event Handout Archive'
under KFHS Resources in the Members Area.

Our speaker, David Shaw, gave a fascinating talk about Poor Law paperwork he had found when researching stationers and printers who produced them. He confessed to not being the family historian, saying that was his wife’s province. David is a printing historian, i.e. his interest lies in the history of printed matter, books, leaflets, forms etc. He became interested in settlement certificates during an indexing project of printed matter that was not on the catalogue at the cathedral archives library. He discovered a variety of uncatalogued printed matter such as those used in the parish under the 18th century Poor Laws and decided to research settlement certificates so as to understand their place in the poor law system. David said that settlement certificates are ideal documents for family research because they are name heavy.  But, David said, first we need to understand the reason for their introduction and their place in providing relief for the poor.

Before the reformation religious houses such as nunneries and monasteries gave aid to poor people undergoing hardship or who were seriously ill and close to death. However, in the 16th century, when Henry VIII broke the church away from Rome this aid ceased as all the religious houses and hospitals in the country were closed down. At this time there was also an increase in the number of sturdy beggars (the physically fit who chose not to work, but to beg and live as vagrants). Members of Parliament knew about the problem of sturdy beggars relying on handouts instead of getting a job and supporting themselves and their families and so Tudor governments started to legislate to solve this problem. In 1572, during Elizabeth I’s reign, saw the creation of overseers of the poor, with two for each parish to administer payments to the poor of their parish. Householders who owned or rented property or land above a certain value had to pay a weekly contribution or tithe to their parish which the overseers could use for those in need. Towards the end of Elizabeth I’s reign a major Act for poor relief was passed. So by the 17th century there is a parish based system for the  relief of the poor funded by tithes paid to the parish by those who owned property and land in the parish.

At the end of the Civil War, Parliament passed in 1662 The Poor Relief Act (Settlement Act) which was the first settlement Act. It specified that only paupers recognised as a settled inhabitant of a parish were eligible for relief from their home parish and were not entitled to parish relief from any other parish. In which case they had to go back to their parish of settlement for aid. Most often this was the parish in which a person, or their father had been born, although there were other ways a person might claim settlement of a parish. The Act also defined what was meant by a pauper; i.e. those who rented property for less than £10 a year.

The 1697 Settlement Act was passed to tidy up the Poor Law system. This Act laid out the requirement for a certificate to show the parish officers of a new parish where you came from and who would look after you if you fell on hard times.  Now if you wanted to go to live or work in another parish you had to take a certificate with you to hand to the parish officers in the new parish. The officers of the new parish would keep your certificate in the parish chest in case, in say 20 years or so hence, you required poor relief. This certificate named your parish of settlement to which you would be return if you required poor relief.

David showed an example of a handwritten Settlement certificate alongside a preprinted one and said the archives should have copies of both types of certificate. At first the handwritten certificate was used, often being drawn up by the parish clerk or a literate neighbour,  until some enterprising London law stationers spotted an opportunity. Why bother to write out and remember all these legal paragraphs, if you could have a nice form with the text preprinted and blank sections in which to write all the legal information applicable to the individual in question. The production of these forms for which the parish had to pay became big business for the London Law stationers and printers soon got into the business too.

David talked us through a working example of a Settlement Certificate naming the individuals who had signed the certificate or been named therein:

• Two church wardens from the person’s home parish of settlement.
• Two overseers from the same home parish of settlement.
• Two witnesses from the person’s home parish of settlement.
  All of the above having signed to witness the certificate.
• Two JPs in the county where the home parish was situated who certified that the form has been validly completed signed, sealed and witnessed.
• Two persons requiring the certificate i.e. the husband and wife and if they had dependants their names and sometimes other details [useful to family historians] about them.
• One London stationer.

As David remarked the word bureaucracy comes to mind at this point, doesn't it? But he reminded us, that any one of these 11 people could be one of our ancestors!

During his talk David showed examples of other Poor Law forms such as Removal Certificates, which as their name implies, returned people to their parish of Settlement. On a Bastardy forms David referred us to Form number printed on the certificate. He explained that with so many similar forms stationers had to introduce a system to enable them to produce the form specific to the parish needs. For example Bastardy forms there was one form for the examination of the mother before birth and another for the different details required after the baby had been born.

These forms can often help with why your ancestor suddenly pops up in another parish but from where they came is a mystery to you. However, a Settlement certificate will tell you their home parish and if they never needed financial help the forms would have remained in the Parish Chest eventually being archived with the parish collection.

David gave some examples of his examinations so far. He said that from the East Kent parish collection archived in Canterbury he has examined 1225 certificates from eight parishes. He had also examined 39 parishes as far flung as: Maidstone, Chester, Ipswich, London, North Allerton, North Yorkshire, Cornwall, and recently Stafford. That is over 4,000 forms from 8 different archives. He found that settlement certificates, amongst those examined so far averaged, between 1698 and 1800, as one or two per year per parish, which suggests perhaps 40/50 thousand movements a year each requiring a form.

However, David’s real interests are the last names on the bottom of the forms, that of the stationer or printer issuing the blank form. When looking through these preprinted forms he found the details of many had never been picked up and recorded anywhere else before. So he decided that he needed to do a complete national survey of printed certificates and wrote a computer programme with interactive maps to help him identify and understand all the data he was finding. David continued showing examples of printers he was finding. In Kent David said the earliest he had found was the printer James Abree who was printing in Canterbury from 1720-1768.  He said locations of printer/stationers often gave the sign of the nearest Inn as their address, such “Sold by John Lenthal stationer at the sign of the Talbot” and a rather charming Trade Card of Christopher Coningsby of St Dunstan’s Fleet Street who could be found at the Golden Turks Head.

David ended with some Removal Orders showing how far some people had travelled from their home parish. The longest he has found so far was in 1757 when a Removal Warrant was issued by the parish of Dingley Northamptonshire to return Mary Price and her child to her husband’s home parish which was Deal. The distance being over 400 miles. David said the husband is not mentioned and he very much doubts whether Mary had come from Kent originally or had ever been there and yet she was returned to Deal because a married woman took her husband's parish of Settlement as her own on marriage, along with any children of the marriage.

David said he wondered in cases of such a long distance to Remove a person back to their home parish whether they travelled by sea? Several people returning to Deal were being removed from a coastal parish and that would seem the easiest way to return them. But, he added more research would need to be done to establish methods of travel used to return people to a home parish over over such long distances.

On his handout, which members listening to the talk will have received by email, he gave a link to the maps on his website.

About the speaker:
Dr David Shaw, a member of Kent FHS, was a former Senior Lecturer and is now an Honorary Senior Research Fellow, at University of Kent.

He is currently Deputy Chairman, of Canterbury Archaeological Trust, Hon. Editor of Electronic Publications and Hon. Assistant Treasurer, Southern Early Music Forum. He also finds time to write blogs and to volunteer at the British Library with Early Printed Collections, and with Canterbury Cathedral Archives and Library. 

In November 2025 David, a past President of The Bibliographical Society, was presented with the Society's gold medal, in recognition of his distinguished services to bibliography, including the Cathedral Libraries Catalogue and his many publications on French and English printing.

Report by Tricia Baxter