The Treatment of the Poor During Elizabeth's Reign

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The Treatment of the Poor During Elizabeth's Reign

Source E is an engraving, which shows how vagrants were being punished

in public for begging in 1957. Most people considered it right that

the vagrants were punished. They thought that they were getting what

they deserved. Everyone thought beggars were sinful and wicked. They

must have done something wrong to be poor. They certainly were not

going to give their own hard-earned money to them. However, during

Elizabeth's reign, this perspective of the poor changed a great deal.

Most people no longer thought of the poor as wicked or sinful, they

now understood the causes of poverty and knew that it wasn't always

the fault of the poor themselves that they were poor. The Elizabethan

Poor Law started this in 1601.

By looking at the Poor Law, the government could see that some changes

were needed. They decided that each parish would look after its own

poor and unemployed. A tax was to be collected within that parish, and

the money raised from this tax would be used to help aid the poor.

This money gave the poor gave them fuel, food and rent for

accommodation. But the poor were then no longer allowed to wander from

one parish to another, they had to stay within their own parish.

A major change was brought about by the Poor Law was that all of the

poor people became separated into 3 groups.

· The first group - The Impotent Poor. These were the people who were

poor because of something that couldn't be helped and they had no

control over. This included children, crippled, old or the sick. These

people might have been given a small amount of food and bits of money

taken from the poor rate (the local poor tax). The disabled were often

looked after in their own homes, as they were not able to walk around

by themselves. This was also paid for out of the poor rate. The poor

children were apprenticed at the Parishes expense. The boys had to

work for their apprenticed master until they became 20 years of age.

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