Report of the Poor law commissioners to the most noble the Marquis of Normanby, Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the Home department, on the continuance of the Poor law commission, and on some further amendments of the laws relating to the relief of the poor. With appendices.

  • Great Britain. Poor Law Commissioners.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Poor law commissioners to the most noble the Marquis of Normanby, Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the Home department, on the continuance of the Poor law commission, and on some further amendments of the laws relating to the relief of the poor. With appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    54/324 (page 40)
    Ineligibility of Overseers as Guardians, required to obey the guardians under penalties to be inflicted for disobedience, and the guardians have express power to give orders to the overseers.* There appears a clear inconsistency in the same person in one office giving directions to himself, and subjecting himself to penalties in another; and the two offices would, as we are advised, be clearly incompatible in the same person, were it not for a doubt arising from the fact that a guardian cannot individually give any order, and that all direc- tions ot the guardians must be given by a Board, at which three persons must be present and concur.y This reason tor doubt existing, it has been considered proper to incline in favour of the right of choice by the constituency, and overseers have therefore been considered eligible as guardians, and many have been elected. I here are, however, very conspicuous inconveniences and ano- malies arising out of this course. It modified considerably the position ol different parishes in a Union; some having the same person lor both overseer and guardian ; others having the benefit ot the subordination of these officers generall}' contemplated by the law. When the overseer is a member of the Board of Guardians, the effective control over him in his capacity of over- seer is greatly diminished by his being enabled to deliberate and vote in his own case on the instructions to be given to him, and the responsibility to be enforced of him. The effect is a prac- tical accumulation of powers in overseers, and both a diminished responsibility in those officers, and less efficiency in the members of the Board of Guardians, The principal evil has hitherto been observed in the elections, in which overseers, being candidates for the office of guardian, are frequently accused, and are sometimes guilty, of partiality in the admission of the claims and votes of the constituents, and in the general conduct of the election. Another striking evil is found in the difficulty with which contributions are enforced from the parishes whose overseers are members of the Board of Guardians. It therefore appears to us to be expedient that overseers should be declared ineligible to the office of guardian. The only possibility of inconvenience from this declaration would be, that in some of the places too small or too little popu- lous to provide both overseers and guardians, the latter office may be unfilled, and the parish may, therefore, be unrepresented at the Board of Guardians. This inconvenience, however, can be partly provided against under the present law, which enables a parish to elect as its guardian any person, whether a rate-payer oi the parish or not, so that he be qualified in any place within the Union. The most effectual remedy, however, for this incon- venience (which can only arise in very small places which are now represented at the Board by the appointment of a guardian * §§ 95. 54. f § 38.