ABSTRACT
Maternity benefit for some women, death benefit, sickness benefit, visits by community nurses and treatment by hospital specialists, in addition to health care undertaken by general practitioners, are all taken for granted. However, in terms of what is now known as general practice, it is likely that the poorest members of Colyton’s community were at least as well looked after, if not better, than those who were slightly above the poverty line. The function of the Guardians of the Poor was to administer the New Poor Law in the amalgamations of parishes which were set up nationwide after the 1834 Act was passed. Colyton was placed in the Axminster Union, made up of seventeen nearby parishes. The scale of provision for health care in the second half of the nineteenth century can in no way compare with what is available today, free of means-testing, under the National Health Service.
