Elizabeth: Poor

• Poverty was a major issue in Elizabethan England, with many reasons for its increase including population growth, bad harvests, sheep farming, enclosure, and economic recessions
• Poverty during Elizabeth's reign

  • Spending more than 80% of your income on bread
  • Being unemployed or unable to provide for yourself or your family
  • Being unable to afford the rising cost of food
  • Needing financial help (poor relief) or charity (alms)
• Vagrants


  People without a settled home or regular work, often seen as dishonest and committing crimes
• Types of poor people

  • Widows or women abandoned by their husbands and families
  • The sick and elderly who were incapable of work
  • Orphaned children - 40% of the poor were under 16
  • People on low wages
  • Itinerants, vagrants and vagabonds - homeless people looking for work
• Reasons for poverty in Elizabethan England


  • Population growth
  • Increasing demand for land
  • Growth of towns driving up rents and food prices
  • Sheep farming replacing food production
  • Dissolution of monasteries that previously helped the poor
  • Bad harvests
  • Economic recessions
  • Enclosure denying use of common land
• Attitudes towards the poor changed during Elizabethan times, with a mix of fear, cost concerns, and changing economic circumstances leading to a more constructive approach
• Elizabethan attitudes towards the poor

  • Distinction between impotent (old, sick) and idle (able-bodied) poor
  • Belief the poor should be given opportunities to better themselves, but those who refused should be punished
  • Suspicion and demonization of the poor as criminals and vagrants
• Elizabethan policies towards the poor

  • Poor rate - local tax to fund poor relief
  • Charity - money and materials provided by wealthy
  • Statute of Artificers - providing work for able-bodied poor
  • 1572 Vagabonds Act - harsh punishment for vagrants
• Poor Rate

  Local tax by Justices of Peace to help poor, given money or things to sell
• Charity 


  Funded by local wealthy people who gave their name to the foundation
• Statute of Artificers 1563


  Those who didn’t pay poor rates could be imprisoned, officials who failed to organise it could be fined £20
• Poor Relief Act 1576


  JPs to provide poor with wool and raw materials to make and sell things. Poor who refused were sent to the House of Correction.
• 1572 Vagabonds Act 


  Vagrants were:

  • whipped and hole drilled in ear to warn others
  • imprisoned on next offence
  • death penalty on third offence

  Introduced poor rate to help poor who were registered by the JPs