West Middlesex Family History Society

Poor Law Records

Poor Law records were kept by the parish churches to administer providing relief to families unable to support themselves by work. The records mentioned here almost all refer to the 'Old' Poor Law. The original Poor Law act was in 1547, and further regulations followed. Then in 1834 there was a major change in the law when the 'New' Poor Law was passed.

The records contain a lot of information that is useful to family historians, but regrettably only a small percentage of the many records survive to this day, and almost no records, country wide, have been indexed. The aim of this page is to show which records in our area have survived, and where they can be found.

The main types of record that exist are as follows:

• Settlement Examinations - where an examiner finds out which parish is responsible for providing relief to a person/family.
• Removal Orders - which follow as a result of the Settlement Examination. These are orders that a person/family be removed to another parish which then becomes liable to provide the relief. Removal Orders may be From this parish, or To this parish.
• Bastardy Examinations - these were conducted to identify the father responsible for making a single woman pregnant. The father was then liable for a portion of the relief.

By default only the parishes with some surviving Poor Law records are shown, but you may also see the full list of ancient parishes (as of 1838) by selecting from the dropdown.

Display option:                Only show parishes for which records exist Show all parishes

The detail of record types and which records have already been transcribed is given in the Online Guide to our Poor Law records.