Hi Bev The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was designed to stop the 'out-relief' of paupers, i.e. the payments to paupers in their parishes for minor work such as laying out bodies etc. and to enforce their living in the Workhouse. As each parish had to provide a workhouse they very rapidly formed Unions of parishes to do this as the most cost effective means of achieving it. Thereafter, all the records relate to who was responsible for the payments for the stay in the workhouses. The workhouses soon became bye words for their insanitary and deadly 'care' as they killed inmates off in large numbers, usually through diseases such as typhoid. They were not meant as places to provide care but as places to lock up the poor and provide them with the bare minimum to allow for their survival. It was explicitly stated that they should provide the lowest amount of support necessary to maintain life but to also be a deterrent against people applying to enter. The Union workhouses were specifically designed to be cost effective as the ratepayers in the parishes complained about the cost of paying for the poor. They were not designed as some sort of early welfare state but a means of deterring people from claiming help and remaining self sufficient even to the extent of people dying rather than enter the workhouse. Just read Dickens-he wasn't exaggerating! Jon -----Original Message----- From: devon-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:devon-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of elizabeth howard Sent: 02 January 2014 15:00 To: devon@rootsweb.com Subject: [DEV] Chargeable to their Parish bapt at Totnes Hi Bev, The clue is in the name Union workhouse. .......and you will find that a number of parishes came under this union and the workhouse at Totnes was built to cope with the needy of these parishes in the Totnes union .( 28 parishes in the Totnes Union) So Henry Foale was chargeable to Cherston Ferrers , and Lee to Halwell and so on . This is the new system from 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.. Each parish in the Union has a parish relief officer and it was his job to decide with the churchwardens and overseers of the poor , who could be kept in the parish on parish relief ( those who might be capable of some sort of paid work for the parish , laying out the dead, sitting with the dying , crow catching , scarecrowing etc.) and those who would have to be sent to the workhouse , mostly as you can see from this it was those young unmarried women who were pregnant, very old people and young women with 5 children under 5 who had mislaid their husbands and were simply too burdened with children to be able to do any work . life is hard . soften it with a cat \\\=^..^=/// ----- Original Message ----- From: "B. Edmonds" <beverley@yourisp.com.au> To: <DEVON@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2014 6:19 AM Subject: [DEV] Chargeable to their Parish bapt at Totnes > Hi, > I am after a HARRIS family, mother Mary c 1813 Totnes, had a son Peter c > 1847 at Totnes. I have yet to find him but have been sidetracked with > below. > > I am having a hard time finding some of these [below] in 1851. > > > Totnes > > All Christened at Totnes, but what does Chargeable in this instance mean? > I > am assuming they have wandered into Totnes without Settlement > Certificates. > > All of Totnes Union Workhouse ...................chargeable to the Parish > of........... > Mar 26th 1839 Henry s/o George and Alice FOALE ... Cherston [sic] Ferrers > Mar 26th 1839 William s/o Marianne LEE [Illeg]............Halwell > Mar 26th 1839 Ann/ d/o Ann SOPER [Illeg] ........South Brent > Mar 26th 1839, Ann d/o Ann HARRIS [Illeg] .............Staverton > 28 Apr 1839 Mary Jane d/o Philippa COLE [Illeg] .............Ugborough > 17th May 1839 Richard Yelland s/o Charles & Mary WIDGER > ..................Stoke Gabriel > > > Bev > > ------------------------------------------ > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > and > the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > List archive for Devon can be found at > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > ------------------------------------------ The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) and the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) List archive for Devon can be found at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message