ABSTRACT
Such were the results of leaving the responsibility for the Poor of the realm to the officers of the individual parishes. In this respect the Act of Settlement, though passed with the best intentions, proved in practice almost wholly bad. By 1660 it was clear to those interested in the problem that the provisions made for the relief and employment of the Poor by the 43 Eliz. c. 2 would no longer work without some measure of adjustment. But unfortunately, though perhaps almost inevitably, the new Act, passed in 1662, instead of organizing larger districts for the administration of the Poor Laws, retained the old parochial basis of the Elizabethan statute, and merely attempted to give its provisions fresh life by defining the responsibility of each parish more carefully. The result was to hamper the free movement of individuals from place to place and to restrict the ebb and flow of labour between the rapidly specializing industrial districts of the country.
