Poor Relief - Law Commission

(e) qualification of the Directors; appointment of treasurer and clerk
(f) the Directors empowered to contract to buy or rent land on which they
would build the workhouse (2 year time limit to build the workhouse and
associated buildings)
(g) the Directors empowered to make bye-laws governing the Guardians;
meetings of the Directors; the Directors empowered to pay money to
relieve poor persons living outside the workhouse
(h) the Directors empowered to borrow up to £6000 upon the security of the
workhouse buildings and the poor rates; the Directors empowered to raise
up to £3000 of this £6000 upon the security of annuities, all such
transactions to be properly recorded
(i) the Directors empowered to assess the sums needed to service the debts
incurred pursuant to their borrowing powers and to pay the expenses of
providing for the poor; churchwardens and overseers of the poor
authorised to raise the necessary money by way of taxation of every
inhabitant in their respective areas
(j) churchwardens and overseers to produce accounts for the years 1764 to
1774 and to assist the Directors in the working of this Act
(k) procedure in event of the Directors failing to hold meetings
(l) arrangements concerning removal of poor persons between parishes;
appointments of workhouse staff and clergy
(m) punishing workhouse inmates for misbehaviour; rewards for hard work;
contracting out the services of inmates; punishments for fraudulent
workhouse staff
(n) expenses of enactment, and of the Guardians and the Directors; civil
procedure issues; status of Act.
5. The workhouse was duly built near Rollesby in 1776. It was enlarged in 1818
and 1834, by which time it could accommodate 400 persons. The inmates were
employed in the making of rope, twine, fishing nets and sacks. After closing as a
workhouse in the late nineteenth century, the building became used as a court house
before being converted into a hotel and, more recently, used as a private residence.
6. The 1775 Act has long been obsolete. It dates back to an age when relief for
the poor, and the money to pay for this, was organised on a parish basis. As
indicated in the accompanying background note, the system of parish-run poor relief
was abolished by the Local Government Act 1929. The poor law system was itself
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