Poor Relief Act 1722

The Poor Relief Act 1722[1] (9 Geo. 1. c. 7), also known as the Workhouse Test Act 1722, Workhouse Test Act 1723 or Knatchbull's Act, was an Act of Parliament passed by the Parliament of Great Britain.[2][3] It was titled "An Act for Amending the Laws relating to the Settlement, Employment, and Relief of the Poor".[4]

Poor Relief Act 1722[1]

Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Long title	An Act for Amending the Laws relating to the Settlement, Employment, and Relief of the Poor.
Citation	9 Geo. 1. c. 7
Other legislation
Repealed by	Statute Law Revision Act 1948

The Act repeated the clause of the Poor Relief Act 1691 that ordered that in every parish a book should be kept, registering the names of everyone receiving relief and the reasons why.[5] No one else was permitted to receive relief (except in cases of disease, plague or smallpox) except by authority of a justice of the peace who lived in or near the parish or who was visiting during quarter sessions.[5]

The Act claimed that "many persons have applied to some justices of peace without the knowledge of any officers of the parish, and thereby, upon untrue suggestions, and sometimes upon false and frivolous pretences, have obtained relief, which hath greatly contributed to the increase of the parish rates".[5] To rectify this, the Act ordered that no justice of the peace could award poor relief until the recipient had taken an oath on the reason why they needed to claim relief.[5] This was applicable in cases where the overseers or the vestry had refused someone relief and the Act ordered that the Justice of the Peace was first required to summon the overseer to discover why that relief had been refused.[5] The Act reiterated the need for the Justice of the Peace to register this relief and stipulated that such relief should continue only so long as the causes for it continued.[5] Any overseer or parish officer who awarded relief without first registering it "except upon sudden and emergent occasions" was to be punished by forfeiting and paying £5 to be used for the poor of the parish.[5]

The Act also empowered churchwardens and overseers (with the consent of the vestry) "to purchase or hire any house or houses, and to contract with any persons for the lodging, keeping, maintaining and employing any or all such poor persons in their respective parishes, etc., as shall desire to receive relief, and there to keep, maintain, and employ all such poor persons, and take the benefit of Parishes their work, labour, and service".[6] Where a parish could not afford to maintain a workhouse on their own, the Act permitted the parish to join other parishes in purchasing a building for this purpose, so long as it had the permission of the vestry and a local Justice of the Peace.[6]

If a poor person refused to be lodged in a workhouse, the Act ordered them to be "put out of the book in which the names of persons who ought to receive relief are registered, and [they] shall not be entitled to ask or receive relief from the churchwardens and overseers".[6]