Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act 1864

Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act 1864^[1]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Citation	27 & 28 Vict c. 116
Other legislation
Repealed by	Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act 1865
Status: Repealed

The Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act 1864 (27 & 28 Vict c. 116) was a short-term piece of legislation that imposed a legal obligation on Poor Law unions in London to provide temporary accommodation for "destitute wayfarers, wanderers, and foundlings".^[2] The Metropolitan Board of Works was given limited authority to reimburse the unions for the cost of building the necessary casual wards, an arrangement that was made permanent the following year by the passage of the Metropolitan Houseless Poor Act 1865 (28 & 29 Vict c. 34).^[3]

Most provincial Poor Law unions followed London's example, and by the 1870s, of the 643 then in existence, 572 had established casual wards for the reception of vagrants.^[4]

References

Citations

1. The citation of this Act by this short title was authorised by the Short Titles Act 1896.
2. Higginbotham (2012), Art
3. Green (2010), p. 233
4. Vorspan, Rachel (January 1977), "Vagrancy and the New Poor Law in Late-Victorian and Edwardian England", The English Historical Review 92 (362): 59–81, doi:10.1093/ehr/xcii.ccclxii.59, JSTOR 566301 (subscription required)

Bibliography

• Green, David R. (2010), Pauper Capital: London and the Poor Law, 1790–1870, Ashgate Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7546-9903-3
• Higginbotham, Peter (2012), The Workhouse Encyclopedia (eBook), The History Press, ISBN 978-0-7524-7719-0