POOR LAW ACTS OF 1849:

VIZ.

FOR THE RELIEF OF THE POOR IN CITIES AND

BOROUGHS,

(12 & 13 VICT. cc. 8, 64);

FOR SECURING COSTS IN PROCEEDINGS FOR RATES,

(12 & 13 VICT. c. 14);

FOR COLLECTION OF RATES IN DIVIDED PARISHES,

(12 & 13 VICT. c. 65);

FOR REGULATING ESTABLISHMENTS FOR

MAINTENANCE OF THE POOR

(12 & 13 VICT. e. 13);

THE UNION CHARGEABILITY CONTINUANCE

(12 & 13 VICT. c. 103);

AND

GO

OTHER ENACTMENTS RELATING TO THE POOR LAW

PASSED IN THE SESSION 1849;

WITH AN

INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND APPENDIX

Containing the Letters of the Poor Law Board on the Acts, and to the

District Auditors, with the Act 10 & 11 VICT. c. 109, by which

the Poor Law Board was established;

AND

A GENERAL INDEX.

BY WILLIAM GOLDEN LUMLEY, ESQ.

OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW,

FIRST ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE POOR LAW BOARD.

LONDON:

CHARLES KNIGHT, 90, FLEET STREET,

PUBLISHER BY AUTHORITY TO THE POOR LAW BOARD.

London: Printed by M. MASON, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row.

115

. 121

APPENDIX:

First Circular Letter of the Poor Law Board on 12 and 13

Vict. c. 103

Second ditto of ditto on the other Statutes

Circular Letter of the Poor Law Board to the District

The Statute 9 and 10 Vict. c. 109, creating the Poor Law

Board

The Interpretation Clauses of the Poor Law Acts

INDEX

131

145

. 149

INTRODUCTION.

THE Session of Parliament which has just closed has been productive of several measures which directly affect the administration of the laws for the Relief of the Poor. The constitution of a public Board for the control and regulation of that important branch of social polity, and the circumstance of its President being a member of the legislature, will lead necessarily to frequent enactments upon the subject. This Board learns readily and speedily the defects which daily experience brings to light in the administration of the law, and it becomes almost a duty imposed upon the President to submit to Parliament the most appropriate remedy for such defects.

Accordingly in the session referred to many points involving matters of detail, rather than any general principle, will be found to have been the subject of consideration, and have led to the enactments hereinafter set forth.

The first statute, namely, the 13 and 14 Vict. c. 8, supplies a remedy for a great inconvenience which was likely to follow from a decision of the Court of Queen's Bench in the course of last Michaelmas term, regarding the appointment of Overseers.

The 43 Eliz. c. 2, which created the office of the Overseer of the Poor, in the first section directed that the appointment of that officer should be made by the justices of the division of the county living in or near the parish. But as in many cities and corporate towns the justices of the county were, by the charters of those incorporations, restrained from acting therein, the same statute in section 8 enacted that in such cities and towns corporate, the mayor, bailiffs, or other headofficers, being justices of peace, should have the same authority within those precincts, in or out of session, as the justices of the county have under that Act.

B