A Chronology of State Medicine, Public Health, Welfare and Related ...

1694 - 1698
1694 Bank of England set up by Charter to lend £1.2 million to the Government.
Apothecaries exempted from serving as parish officers and on juries (6 Will.III, c.4).
See
1722.
1695 An Act (6&7 Will.III, c.6) required duties to be paid on births, marriages and burials,
and for all parish priests to register these events accurately and give access to the registers to
the Collectors. See 1753 and 1836.
1696 An Act for Preventing Charge and Expense in Elections of Members to Serve in
Parliament (7&8 Will.III, c.4) stated that candidates for election who gave or promised any
present or reward to any person having a vote, for the purpose of influencing their vote, shall
be declared not elected. See 1729.
Act (7&8 Will.III, c.32) for the Ease of Jurors and Better Regulating of Juries.
Education Act passed in Scotland requiring schools to be set up in every parish with
teachers paid for by the parish landowners.
Bristol, and later other towns, initiated local acts of Parliament to give them authority
to organise poor relief to suit their circumstances. See 1697 and 1722.
Window Tax introduced (8 Will.III, c.18) to raise extra money for the war against
France which was supporting the exiled James II. Every dwelling house with ten or more
windows had to pay four shillings per year. See 1747.
Gregory King (statistician) calculated that 63 per cent of the population had incomes
below the poverty level which he put at £40 p.a.; "cottagers and paupers" had only £6 &10s.
1697 Poor Law Act (8 Will.III, c.30) introduced badges to be worn by paupers. See 1729.
First dispensary opened in the premises of the Royal College of Physicians in Warwick
Lane, where the poor were given free consultation and advice, and prescribed drugs
dispensed from a special stock. Branches were opened later in other parts of the City. Closed
in 1725.
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731, journalist and novelist) proposed that the insurance principle
should be applied to the social problems of the poor, including disability pensions and
medical and institutional care.
1698 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge established, having originated from
parochial libraries introduced by Thomas Bray (1656-1730, clergyman); it encouraged
charity schools for children aged 7 to 11 (occasionally 14) for their education based on the
Bible and emphasising moral discipline and social subordination so as to fit a man or woman
for the station in life into which he or she had been born.
1700 - 1720
England at the start of the century was still mainly a land of hamlets and villages with the
majority of the population living in the south. The population probably numbered about five
and a half million. In the towns, houses, including the cellars, were desperately overcrowded;
there were no sanitary systems, and streets were unpaved and filthy. In the early part of the