Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries the various religious orders often cared for the poor of the parishes under their control and the Surrender of the Abbeys of Byland and Rievaulx created a pattern of unrelieved poverty that was seen throughout the country in the middle of the 16th century leading to the establishment of Overseers of the Poor in the parishes where people entrusted with the responsibility of caring for the poor were elected by Vestry meetings and those appointed had to be approved by Justices of the Peace. The system was consolidated by the Poor Law Acts of 1597 and 1601 which empowered Overseers to raise revenue by the use of local rates which was used to aid paupers in such ways as paying their rents, providing clothing and fuel and giving financial assistance in times of urgent need.
Evidence of such payments can be seen in the extracts from the Constable’s Accounts shown on page 99 but the populations increases seen in the late 18th and early 19th centuries led to huge rises in expenditure on the care of the poor and brought about the passing of the Poor Law Act of 1834 leading to further development of Unions of Parishes run by Boards of Guardians and the building of more Workhouses and as the parish of Old Byland became part of the Helmsley Union some of the paupers were sent to the Helmsley Workhouse which was described by Sir John Walsham as a ‘hovel’ in 1842 and unfortunately the parish seems to have had greater economic problems than that if its neighbours as can be seen from the following figures which show calls made upon the parishes in 1857
‘In maintenance’ referred to numbers in the parish kept in the workhouse and ’out maintenance’ applied to the cost of aid to poor who were still in their settled parish and the above figures indicate a sad state of affairs where the total cost of caring for the poor of Old Byland was 3.2 times that of Rievaulx which had a larger population and 6.5 times that of Scawton whose population was roughly the same. No other records have survived to give any reasons for these differences between parishes whose agricultural backgrounds were broadly similar but the regular payments made to paupers and the sending of one family to America all suggest that some of the Old Byland families were experiencing hard times.
