Note 77 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
The bill proposed to divide every county into large districts, comprising a whole hundred, or at least a great number of parishes, in order to remedy the evils caused by the distresses of the poor, and the misapplication of the money raised for their relief. It has the merit of being one of the earliest efforts made in Parliament for the amendment of the Poor-laws. In 1782 Mr. Gilbert succeeded in carrying a bill containing the main features by his plan for the incorporation of parishes, so well known as the Gilbert Act. An account of these and other bills, prepared by Mr. Gilbert, of the same tendency, is given in Eden’s History of the Poor, vol. i. p. 362.—E.