Scotland in the nineteenth century

14. Poverty and relief measures

Section 14.5: Poor removal

The counties paying removal charges for the years 1842, 1843 and 1844 were listed with the amount paid, but the return did not break the amount down between Irish and Scottish paupers.

The Committee were inquiring into the removal of those claiming poor relief from England or Scotland to their place of birth.

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Sir John McNeill, Chairman of the Board of Supervision for the Relief of the Poor in Scotland, gave evidence of the Board's methods of finding a place of settlement for those claiming relief from a Scottish parish (pp. 210-234).

The Scottish system of poor administration was centred on the 882 Scottish parishes. There were two kinds of poor removal, parish to parish or from Scotland to another country England, Ireland or the Isle of Man. Those liable to removal were people applying for relief to a parish who were not born in Scotland or Scottish residents. Residence was defined as living for five or more years in one parish without claiming relief or begging. Women could acquire residence by marriage and a period of continuous non-residence of four years would mean the loss of resident status.

In Scotland, 13,283 Irish paupers were not removable because they had acquired a settlement, while 17,622 more were liable to removal on production of a J.P.'s warrant and a certificate of health (p. 212).

The Committee agreed that the Poor Removal Act, 1846 succeeded in protecting the poor but recommended that the period of residence should be reduced from five years to three, with the person claiming residence having to spend this time not in one parish but anywhere in the Union, and also that orphan pauper children should inherit their parents' status of residence, lunatics be made chargeable to the whole Union not just one parish and that changes should be made to the method of assessing the charges paid by parishes to the cost of the Union.

William McGee, Chairman of the Belfast Board of Guardians, gave evidence on the removal of poor from Scotland to Ireland via Belfast. Although there had been an improvement since 1854, it was still more difficult to acquire a residence in Scotland than the law intended it to be. Lunatics and weak minded or simple people especially were being sent to Ireland from Scotland because they could not prove their place of residence.

"to inquire into the existing laws in the United Kingdom relating to the settlement and irremovability of paupers, with special reference to the case of removals to Ireland, and with power to make any proposals for the alteration, repeal, or assimilation of such laws."

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A resolution had been carried in the House of Commons on 2nd July 1878 "that the laws under which the destitute poor receiving relief from the poor-rate are subject to removal in England and Scotland in their operation inflict hardship, and require consideration with a view to their amendment." In England, a man receiving poor relief could obtain "settlement" and, therefore, could not be removed from the parish, if he had been born in that parish or if he had lived there for three years. In Scotland, however, five years' residence was necessary to qualify for settlement. There was no law of settlement or removal in Ireland.

Although the law of removal caused much hardship, provoked endless litigation and prevented the migration of the poor in search of better conditions of employment, it was feared that its abolition would result in increased vagrancy. Three main modifications of the law of removal were suggested by the witnesses:

1. One year's residence or birth in a particular parish should be the only condition of settlement.
2. Rather than removing a pauper to the parish of his settlement, chargeability orders should be issued to make that parish responsible for his relief.
3. The county rate, which was only chargeable for lunatics and the burial of bodies washed on shore, should be made chargeable in other cases.

The Committee recommended that the law of removal should be abolished in England, and in Scotland the law should be gradually assimilated to that of England and that the five years' residential settlement should be reduced to one year.

The law of removal had caused particular hardship in Scotland where many Irish paupers had settled, especially in the years following the potato famine. It was claimed that many Irish families had been sent back to their native land after residing in Scotland for a number of years.

John Skelton, Secretary to the Board of Supervision in Scotland (pp. 44-57), explained the law concerning removal in Scotland, which was based on the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845 and the Poor Removal Act, 1862. No man was removable until he actually claimed poor relief, either for himself or his family. No poor relief was given to the able-bodied in Scotland. The only exception to this rule was the case of a pauper who had an insane wife. It was illegal to split up a family by removing only certain members of it.

A number of inspectors of the poor in various parishes in Glasgow and Edinburgh, gave evidence to the Committee, including statistics of in-door and out-door relief in their parishes, the proportion of Irish paupers and their removal. On the whole, they objected to the abolition of the law of removal as they feared this would cause an influx of Irish poor into Scotland.

Appendix no. 5: Table showing the removals of paupers from Scotland, including observations of the inspectors (p. 181).