Machynlleth - Care of the poor 1
'Falling on the parish'

Help in hard times
Until comparatively recent times daily life for the majority of people in Montgomeryshire was a struggle. Simple occurrences such as losing your job or becoming too ill or old to work could spell real hardship. If this happened then the stricken family had to turn to the local parish for help.As any relief offered came from the Poor Rate paid by local property owners, the parish officers were keen to send back paupers to their parish of origin if they were not regarded as local.

In 1783 the family of Howell William in the parish of Cemmaes found themselves in need of poor relief. The local parish officers brought them before the Quarter Sessions to have them removed by law to Llanbrynmair, Howell William's place of origin.

Montgomeryshire
Quarter Sessions
1783

Powys
County Archives
M/Q/SO/2

The extract from the Order Book of the Quarter Sessions reads as follows:
"Ordered that the Order of Robert Edwards Doctor in Divinity and Robert Griffith clerk two of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the said county for the removal of Howell William Jane his wife and Jane Margaret and Elizabeth their children from and out of the said Parish of Cemmes to the said Parish of Llanbrynmair be and the same to hereby confirmed".

The two Justices of the Peace who ordered the removal of the pauper family
were both clergymen of the Church of England, clerics being very much a part
of the county establishment at that time. What happened to the family when they arrived in Llanbrynmair is not recorded in the Order Book.

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