Poor relief regulation of 1847
1847 års fattigvårdförordning (English: Poor relief regulation of 1847) was a Swedish Poor Law which organized the public Poor relief in the Sweden. With some alterations in 1853 and 1871, it established the grounds for the poor care system until the Poor Care Law of 1918.
The law replaced 1642 års tiggareordning, which had previously regulated the public poor relief. At the time of the enactment of the reform of 1847, the poor care was largely organized in the traditional rotegångsystem, administered by the church.
The 1847 regulation established a public Board of directors for poor relief in each parish (after 1862 municipality) and the church was no longer directly involved, though the parish vicar were always to be given a place in the board. Second, the law made it mandatory to contribute to the parish poor fund. Third, the ban for paupers to move was lifted and the parish right to refuse a pauper to move in to the parish was abolished.
The Poor Care Board had the task to grant benefit to the needing, and to arrange a place on a poor house or, if the community did not have a poor house, organize housing with a parishioner for the pauper and pay out the benefit to the host. The pauper's hosts were given the legal right to demand the poor care benefactors to work for them, which was customary in accordance with the traditional rotegång system, but the benefactors were also allowed to file complaints of abuse.
The traditional rotegång system were kept as a parallel for adult paupers, but abolished for children. However, the ban against rotegång for children, which were now to be placed in foster homes by the poor care board, lead to pauper actions being more common for them, signifying that those parishioners who made the lowest 'bid' to the poor care board, that is to say demanded the lowest social benefit to house and care for them, were given the right to care for them.
The Poor relief regulation of 1847 was not changed much by the new act of 1853. The law eventually came to be regarded as too liberal and generous, which was illustrated during the Swedish famine of 1867–1869. The Poor relief regulation of 1871 (1871 års fattigvårdförordning) severely deteriorated the rights of the needing by depriving most except old, children and the insane and invalids from the right of social benefit, but in other aspects kept the form of the 1847 regulation. It was not until the Poor Care Law of 1918 (1918 års fattigvårdslag) that the entire poor relief system in Sweden was truly reformed and the rotegång, the pauper auctions, child auctions, the poor houses and other old fashioned phenomena were abolished.
See also
References
- Elisabeth Engberg, I fattiga omständigheter. Fattigvårdens former och understödstagare i Skellefteå socken under 1800-talet. [In poor circumstances. Poor relief policy and paupers in Skellefteå parish, Sweden, in the nineteenth century] Umeå 2005, 368 pp. Monograph.
- Hadenius, Stig, Nilsson, Torbjörn & Åselius, Gunnar, Sveriges historia: vad varje svensk bör veta, Bonnier Alba, Stockholm, 1996
- Sven Ulric Palme: Hundra år under kommunalförfattningarna 1862-1962: en minnesskrift utgiven av Svenska landskommunernas förbund, Svenska landstingsförbundet [och] Svenska stadsförbundet, printed at Godvil, 1962