Question about settlement rights and baptism

[Merry]

Nothing to add to BK6 from this thread

Presumably over the time in history that your birth parish was responsible for your welfare if you fell on hard times it was particularly important to those in charge that babies were baptised in their actual birth parish and not just any old nearby C of E church?

Were there actual rules though and if yes, when were they relaxed?

I accept that rules are made to be broken !

Discuss.........

[Olde Crone]

I just typed a huge long reply and lost it, grr!

Basically, the rules were unwritten but the overriding religious consideration was to baptise any baby as soon as possible and a child born in a parish would not be refused bapotism just because its parents were en route to somewhere else.

OC

[Oakum Picker]

I know I'm not going to explain this very well but baptism was irrelevant when it came to place of settlement. I have several Examinations about birthplace where it is not where the child was baptised. In these cases the questions were answered honestly - I don't know how easy it was to lie. However these examinations did cause disputes between parishes & often ended up in the Quarter Sessions where they were decided. They were usually accepted although I think you could appeal.

Forgot to say, children automatically took their father's place of settlement irrespective of where born/baptised unless they were illegitimate.

My 4xg-gf was baptised in Hitchin so could possibly have been born elsewhere but I don't think so. At the time of his shotgun wedding in Dunstable he was of Biggleswade & this remained the place of settlement (from relief docs.)for his wife & adult children 30 years after his transportation although all continued to live, marry & raise families in Hitchin. I can only assume that not one of them managed to gain their own POS through being employed by more than a year at a time.

My 3xg-gf, the cause of the above wedding was born in Dunstable & although he was baptised, married, lived & died in Hitchin I have a doc. showing he was given relief by Dunstable.

[Olde Crone]

Yes, having read your post more carefully, lol - your place of settlement was just that really - the most recent place at which you had been granted settlement, which wouldn't necessarily be your place of birth.

I have one widow woman appealing at the death of her husband, to be allowed to stay in the parish with her children, who were all born there, but she was not. they wanted to send her to her own parish but she claimed successfully that as her husband had been settled in the parish for many years, she be allowed to stay.

(A very practical solution was devised - she was sent to live with an elderly woman who was also claiming parish relief and looked after her, for which she received a small wage)

OC

[Merry]

Interesting.

This is what I was reading that made me wonder .....

The Law Journal Reports:


An order had been made for the removal of Elizabeth Crawley, a pauper aged 32 from the parishes of St Giles in the Fields and St George Bloomsbury to the West Ham union as the place of her last legal settlement. At Appeal to the last quarter sessions for the county of London was dismissed and the order affirmed, but the learned chairman stated a case for the opinion of the Queen's Bench division that showed that Elizabeth Crawley, the pauper, was the lawful wife of Albert Crawley who was absent from her. Albert Crawley was the lawful son of James Crawley and Elizabeth Crawley, and was born in the parish of Walthamstow in the West Ham union on the 24th April 1857 and had not himself aquired any settlement.

James Crawley was born in the parish of Tottenham in the Edmonton Union on 19th April 1825 and never aquired any settlement before his son Albert Crawley attained the age of twenty one years.

So people had to actually aquire settlement rights? Was this only if they moved about or only if they needed relief or what? Were you stuffed if your father had not obtained settlement rights?

I find it all very confusing!!

[kiterunner]

It seems to me that paragraph would make more sense if it said, "and the order affirmed, and the learned chairman stated a case..." instead of "but". Didn't the court rule that the wife's place of settlement was West Ham because her husband was born there? So I would have thought that opinion agreed with the ruling? Or were they arguing that she should be sent to Edmonton because her husband's father was from there?

[Merry]

I had difficulty finding the whole piece in one place so those are bits of different google results joined together :o

I think it did say 'but'

[kiterunner]

I'm afraid I don't really understand what they're saying then, sorry.

[Merry]

I didn't make myself clear! I don't particularly need to know what happened in this case, but I just wondered what rules were followed to decide where someone was allowed to live. This case made me wonder what it meant when they said Albert Crawley's father didn't aquire any settlement before Albert was 21.

[Phoenix]

If you do not act to change your place of settlement, then it is that of your father.

Marriage would change your place of settlement, so it would become that of your husband.

Rules were changing and relaxing post 1834.

I take it to mean that although she should have gone to Tottenham, there were cogent reasons for her to be in West Ham.

[Phoenix]

I didn't make myself clear! I don't particularly need to know what happened in this case, but I just wondered what rules were followed to decide where someone was allowed to live. This case made me wonder what it meant when they said Albert Crawley's father didn't aquire any settlement before Albert was 21.

If your father changed his settlement when you were a minor then presumably at that date ie 1850s yours changed too. Otherwise, you could have children separated from parents and scattered to the winds. I know there were instances where this did happen, or should have happened, but it was decided as a concession that it was more sensible to leave children with their mothers.

[Merry]

Thanks Phoenix....

So lets say through your childhood you lived in four different parishes with your parents. Then you left home and got married moved to another parish and then needed relief. What would happen next?

[Phoenix]

They would start, asking if you had rented any plush property.

If not, they would ask who you had worked for, and how long.

If all under a year, they would ask where you were born and if that was your father's place of settlement.

Each time you do something to acquire a new place of settlement, that trumps any prior pos.

[Merry]

Each time you do something to acquire a new place of settlement, that trumps any prior pos.


So as a parent, if you moved parishes you would consider whether you needed to formally apply for settlement?

[Phoenix]

You don't apply for it, you have it. Often people are described as "Certificate Man" ie they have a settlement certificate to wave if asked.

You would be examined if you fell upon hard times, or looked as if you might be about to. This happened to one ancestor who had been working away from home for several years, but came back home to marry.

[Merry]

So if you didn't have the bit of paper you might end up arguing in court like the Crawleys?

[Phoenix]

Even if you had a piece of paper, your circumstances might change.

The cases only go to law if the facts can't be decided on.


Jane Hales edited a book called "On the Parish" showing the sorts of situations that might arise.

[Merry]

Oooh thanks - I'll see if I can order that from the library:

ISBN 0948400226

I noticed there was a copy for sale for £288 :eek: Must be a good book!!! lol

[Phoenix]

How much?!!! I doubt if I paid a tenner for mine!

[Nell]

In 1819 my gt x 3 grandfather Robert Chowns, his wife and some of his children were removed from Stoke Poges, Bucks to Aston Rowant in Oxfordshire. Robt had been born in AR, moved to Farnham Royal, Bucks, where he and Susanna married and where all their children were baptised, and had moved from Farnham when the house they shared with Susanna's father became too small & the roof fell in.

It seems Stoke Poges were worried about the family making a claim on the parish, but they didn't return them to Farnham Royal, but back to Robert's home village, which he hadn't lived in for over 20 years.

Aston Rowant objected to suddenly having 5 persons dumped on them and appealed. The magistrates ruled that Robert & family could stay in Stoke Poges. Robert was not a burden to the parish as he lived the last 20 years in a privately-endowed almshouse.