ABSTRACT
Bath appears to have established the first Mendicity Society, the 'Office for Investigation and Relief', in 1805. London's Society for the Suppression of Mendicity was founded in 1818 by William Henry Bodkin, an overseer of the poor and secretary to the Houseless Poor Association. The new Poor Law Act of 1834, which set the framework for poor relief till the post-1945 'Welfare State' legislation, aimed at standardising the regimen of local relief around the country under regulation from a new Poor Law Commission in London. The Poor Law Commission likewise took a wider view, and they were both confronted with the obstinate parochialism of the local poor law authorities. In theory, therefore, there was no excuse for begging. Voluntary Mendicity Societies ran on similar lines. Professional beggars, perhaps trailing broods of pitiable-looking children, sometimes made a comfortable living as peripatetic 'overseer-hunters' accepting parish doles to move on.
