Poor Relief - Law Commission

Reference Extent of repeal or revocation
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56 Geo.3 c.v (1816) The whole Act.
(Mitcham Parish Rates Act)
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56 Geo.3 c.v (1816) (Mitcham Parish Rates Act)
1. This note proposes the repeal of an obsolete nineteenth century enactment
relating to the raising of money in the parish of Mitcham 103 for the relief of the poor.
2. According to the long title, the purpose of the 1816 Act was:
for the better assessing and collecting the Poor and other Parochial Rates, in
the parish of Mitcham, in the County of Surrey.
3. The preamble to the 1816 Act recorded that “the Poor within the Parish of
Mitcham, in the County of Surrey, are very numerous, and are maintained and
supported at a great Expense, and by means of very heavy Rates”. The preamble
also recorded that the existing laws for collecting the poor rates were ineffectual.
Accordingly the main purpose of the 1816 Act was to tighten up the existing
machinery for collecting the rates.
4. The 1816 Act provided as follows:
(a) churchwardens and overseers of the poor authorised to reach agreement
with the owners of property let out on weekly or monthly lettings whereby
the owners (rather than the occupiers) would be liable to pay the poor rates
(and other parochial rates) on such property; penalty for owners who failed
to enter such agreements or who failed to pay the rates; any receiver of
rents was deemed to be the property owner (sections 1 and 2)
(b) churchwardens and overseers authorised to appoint surveyors to value land
in the parish and collectors to collect the rates; security to be taken from the
collectors; removal of collectors from office; penalty for collectors who failed
to hand over the rates collected or produce their account books (sections 3
to 7)
(c) persons failing to pay rates to be summoned to appear before a justice of
the peace; goods and chattels of such persons to be seized whether in
Mitcham or in any other place; form of distress warrant (sections 8 to 10)
103 Mitcham in 1816 was in the County of Surrey. Today it forms part of the London Borough of Merton.
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