A Comparison of Poor Relief in Norfolk and Huntingdonshire

This paper is an examination of poor relief practice in the parish of Mattishall, Norfolk, in the first two decades of the eighteenth century, and a comparison of Mattishall with four parishes in Huntingdonshire. The main conclusion is that, unusually for a lowland parish, Mattishall kept a very tight rein on the amount of poor relief disbursed, not allowing it to rise even at times of economic hardship. Other parishes allowed the amount paid to increase, usually by paying wage subsidies or supplementary relief and thereby bringing a large proportion of the workforce within the ambit of the Poor Law, or more rarely by effectively replacing all income for a section of the working-age population.