What shaped the 1602 Poor law?
In 1602 an attempt to stop much of the begging and crime by people on the streets saw the Poor Law introduced. Prior to this, the poor and needy would have had to beg or rely on the charity of their friends, church, neighbours and perhaps an enlightened landlord for survival. But by 1602 Britain was developing a large number of towns and cities and there was considerably more movement as workers left the countryside in search of work elsewhere. In times of hardship there was little work or money to go around and they often had to resort to begging and crime to get by. The 1602 Poor Law went some way to providing some means of survival for the poor and needy. It demanded that each parish would be responsible for the welfare of its own parishioners and each landowners and tenants of property worth more than £10.00 per annum had to pay a tax to fund the system. You could only qualify for relief in the parish of your birth so this stopped people leaving rural parishes and going to bigger t
