Poor Act 1697

Poor Act 1697X1

1697 CHAPTER 11 9 Will 3

An Act for explaining an Act made the last Session of Parliament. entituled An Act for supplying some Defects in the Laws for the Relief of the Poor of this Kingdome.

Editorial Information

X1 Abbreviated title derived from Chronological Table of the Statutes: Covering the Period from 1235 to the End of 1971 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. 1972)

Recital of 8 & 9 W.III. c.30. § I.

and that Doubts had arisen thereupon.; No Certificate Person adjudged settled, unless he rent a Tenement of £10 per Ann. or execute a Parish Office.

Whereas in and by a certaine Act made in the last Session of this present Parliament entituled An Act for supplying some Defects in the Laws for the Releife of the Poor of this Kingdome Itt was amongst other things therein contained enacted That if any Person or Persons whatsoever that from and after the First Day of May in the yeare of our Lord One thousand six hundred ninety seven shall come into any Parish or X2 Place there to inhabitt & reside should att the same time procure bring and deliver to the Churchwardens or Overseers of the Poor of the Parish or Place where any such Person should come to inhabitt or to any or either of them a Certificate under the Hands and Seales of the Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor of any other Parish Townshipp or Place or the major part of them or under the Hands and Seales of the Overseers of the Poor of any other Place where there are no Churchwardens to be attested respectively by two or or more credible Witnesses thereby owning & acknowledging the Person or Persons mentioned in the said Certificate to be an Inhabitant or Inh[ab]itants legally settled in that Parish Towneshipp or Place every such Certificate having been allowed of and subscribed by two or more of the Justices of the Peace of the County City Lib[er]ty Borough or Towne-Corporate wherein the Parish or Place from whence any such Certificate shall come doth lye shall oblidge the said Parish or Place to receive and provide for the Person mentioned in the Certificate with his or her Familie as Inhabitants of that Parish whenever he she or they shall happen to become chargeable to or be forced to ask Releife of the Parish Townshipp or Place to which such Certificate was given and that then and not before it should and might be lawfull for any such Person and his or her Children though borne in that Parish not having otherwise acquired a legal Settlement there to be removed conveyed and settled in the Parish or Place from whence such Certificate was brought And whereas some Doubts have arisen upon Construction of the said Act by what Acts any Person coming to inhabitt or reside within any Parish by virtue of any such Certificate as aforesaid may procure a legal Settlement in such Parish and whether such Certificate did not amount to a Notice in writing in order to gaine a Settlement For explaining thereof and of the said Act Be it therefore enacted & declared by the Kings most Excellent Majesty by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That no Person or Persons whatsoever who shall come into any Parish by any such Certificate as aforesaid shall be adjudged by any Act whatsoever to have procured a legal Settlement in such Parish unlesse he or they shall really and bona fide take a Lease of a Tenement of the yearly Value of Ten Pounds or shall execute some Annual Office in such Parish being legally placed in such Office.

Editorial Information

X2 Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: other O. [O. refers to a collection in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge]