Search Middlesex Poor Law Records 1699-1846

The records vary by event type (examination, settlement, removal and so on) but generally give the following information:

• Name

• Age

• Date

• Event type

• Parish

• A summary of the full record

• Archive reference

This record set covers part of West Middlesex. The following 10 parishes are included:

• Chelsea, St Luke

• Ealing, St Mary

• Feltham, St Dunstan

• Fulham, All Saints

• Hammersmith, St Paul

• New Brentford, St Laurence

• Shepperton, St Nicholas

• Staines, St Mary

• Stanwell, St Mary

• Uxbridge, St Margaret

The majority of records relate to the Poor Law process of determining where a person rightfully belonged and, by extension, which parish was responsible for providing for them. From the family historian’s point of view, this process produced a series of inter-related documents – settlement examinations (here called examinations); removals; and settlement certificates (here called settlements) – which can provide all sorts of personal and family details upon which history might otherwise be silent.

Removals were two-way – from one parish and to another. Some of the parishes involved were, of course, beyond West Middlesex.

In addition to examinations, removals and settlements, the researcher will also find records relating to illegitimacy, where the parish was looking for identify the reputed father of an illegitimate child, so that he, and/or his parish, could be charged with maintenance. These documents are called bastardy orders and bastardy bonds.