A. by Jean Debney [15-Jul-2002] The Poor Law
Unions were set up in 1835 after the 'Poor Law Amendment Act' in
1834. They consist of groups of parishes administered by Poor Law
Guardians having a central workhouse for the destitute poor.
Prior to 1834 poor law administration was in each parish
and some of the surviving records, mainly 'Settlement Records' for
Berkshire have been transcribed and published on microfiche by the
Society - details are on the Society booklist. Because duplicate
records were created there may be documents referring to 'your' family
surviving in the 'other' parish while none may have survived in the
'home' parish.
A good book which explains the old poor law system
(1601-1834) is "An Introduction to Poor Law Documents before 1834" by
Anne COLE (a Federation FHS publication). It can be purchased by
post from Berkshire
FHS Bookshop.
A. by Cliff Debney [14-May-2002] There were
basically 2 Poor Laws, what is usually called the 'Old Poor Law' which
ended in 1834 and the 'new Poor Law' which began in 1835 and ran on
until 1929/30. The old Poor Law was concerned with parishes, each
of which had its own Poor Law administrators and, as a basic statement,
only looked after its own "parishioners", ie. those who had settlement
in the parish. The New Poor Law grouped parishes together in
Unions and they built a Union Work House, each Union having its
officials and records. Now the 'parishioners' were many more.
The boundaries of the Cookham Union, renamed Maidenhead in
1899, were those subsequently used for the 1851 and later Census
(similarly for the whole of E & W) and the parishes / places in the
Union were:
Bisham, Boyn Hill, Bray, Braywick, Burchetts Green,
Cookham, Cookham Dean, Cox Green, Fifield, Holyport, Hurley, Knowl
Hill, Littlewick Green, Maidenhead, North Town, Shottesbrook, Pinkneys
Green, Waltham St Lawrence and White Waltham.
The records which have survived for the union are mainly
in the Berkshire RO, the Maidenhead Library and (of course) the
PRO. I recommend you buy the Jeremy Gibson & Colin
Rogers guide "Poor Law Union Records, 3 South-West England, The Marches
and Wales", produced by the Federation of Family History
Societies, 2nd Ed, which is available from our Bookshop - see our on-line Booklist - where
you will
find many of the answers you seek.
Whoever told you the Research Centre has New Poor Law
records was in error - we only have transcripts of some of the
Overseers papers held in the BRO, ie. the Settlement certificates, and
these are from the Old Poor Law records.
The Guardians Minutes are only available in the BRO.
It would be nice if someone indexed them - if so the Society would
publish them.
