Poor Relief - Law Commission

treasurer, clerk and other officers, including staff to run the workhouse
and clergy to perform divine service; weekly meetings of the Directors
(sections 6 to 15)
(c) Directors empowered to contract to buy land within the hundred of
Oswestry and to construct a workhouse or other buildings for the
purposes of this Act; the buildings to be called “The Oswestry House of
Industry” 62 ; taxation and furnishing of such buildings; Directors to have the
management and care of the poor; Directors empowered to set the poor
to work; Directors empowered to send the idle or disorderly poor to the
workhouse; Directors required to set aside space for a burial ground
(sections 16 to 21)
(d) Directors empowered to arrange for the apprehension of vagrants for
despatch to the workhouse or for their conveyance to any previous place
of settlement; workhouse children at 14 to be apprenticed for a maximum
of seven years or until they reach 21 (boys) or 18 (girls); Directors
empowered to discharge children at 14 or to hire them out for employment
in the area (including gathering in the harvest) (sections 22 to 25)
(e) the Corporation (ie the Guardians as an incorporated body) authorised to
borrow up to £12,000, assigning the Corporation’s assets and the poor
rates as security; form and transfers of assignments (section 26)
(f) Directors authorised to assess the sums needed to meet their obligations
under this Act to provide relief for the poor and to service borrowings, by
means of levying rates on the inhabitants of Oswestry and neighbouring
parishes; amount of rates to be fixed by reference to the average
expenditure over the previous seven years, such average amount to be
fixed by Commissioners (section 27 to 29)
(g) churchwardens and overseers of Oswestry and other parish officers
required to produce books and accounts of poor law receipts and
expenses over the past seven years; provision for assessment of rates in
absence of such books and accounts; appointment of new
Commissioners; all parish officers required to assist the Directors in the
execution of this Act; penalties for defaulting churchwardens and
overseers (sections 30 to 34)
(h) appointment of constables; charity money to be included in the calculation
of rates assessments; this Act not to affect parish officers’ other powers to
62 I.e. workhouse.
61