ABSTRACT
In the period of about 70 years between Henry VIII’s law and the end of the century, England consolidated the system of regulation of the poor, with the policy of assistance and workhouses. In 1548 a proposal was put forward, probably written by John Hales, to exonerate towns from the payment of the tax freeing them from feudal bonds. The savings from this could go into a pool, to be used ‘in settying the poore people of the same [city] on worke’.97
