----- Original Message ----- From: "Barbara Mallyon" <[email protected]> To: "Nigel Gerdes " <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007 10:10 PM Subject: Re: [King] WYTHE/GIRDLER/BRIDGMAN/JEWELL 'Snipped' > Settlement Examinations (Interviewed by the Parish > Council) > William WYTHE, wife Elizabeth and children William 7, > Sarah 5, > Elizabeth 3, John age 1 from Aldermaston, Berks in 1780 > Removal Orders from Kingsclere back to Aldermaston 1780 > Note. They were not given permission to live in Kingsclere > and had to > go back to Aldermaston where they came from. There appears to be a misunderstanding concerning Settlement Examinations. These were statements sworn before Justices of the Peace to whom the Parish Overseers conducted the poor unfortunates who had fallen on hard times and had applied for relief. Often the statements resulted in the examinants being expelled from their parish of birth to a place where it was considered they had subsequently obtained legal settlement via work or apprenticeship. Parish Councils were not created until the Local Government Act 1894, in an effort to infuse more vitality into parishes which had declined in importance following the loss of their Poor Law functions in 1834. Dorothy J.