Volume XL, The Poor, the Sick and the Stranger in Hertfordshire: A Selection of Settlement Examinations and Removals, 1697-1898
The introduction of the Poor Laws, its impact on the social fabric, and the silence of the poor themselves, were the inspiration behind this book. Mostly illiterate, the poor left us no personal records, but their occupations and what was written about them, by overseers, the board of guardians, or in court records, where they were invariably accused of stealing foodstuffs, and the harsh penalties enacted, tell us a good deal about their lives. Further exploration in records of baptisms, burials and marriage, and, from the nineteenth century, in census records and local newspapers, offers a more detailed picture of individual people, giving them a voice and a place in the social world of their time in Hertfordshire.
This study of 304 selected settlement examinations and removals, together with relevant supplementary materials, produced during the period 1697‒1898, therefore offers an opportunity for some to investigate the lives of their ancestors, but, much more than that, for many it is an opportunity to discover something of the poor, the sick and the stranger as they lived in, or passed through, Hertfordshire, tracing an intangible but important connection between the past and present.
- Edited and with an Introduction by Anne-Marie Ford
- xiv + 262pp
- 20 illustrations, map on endpapers, plus illustrated jacket
- ISBN 978-0-950174-17-4
Non-Members:
£22
• Members:
£17.50
(+£4 p&p )