Records of parochial boards and parish councils

Parochial boards and parish councils had similar functions and often, parish councils continued to use the same physical volumes of minutes or other records as their predecessor parochial board. The minutes are usually manuscript; begin with a sederunt and then deal with board business. This may include (after 1867) public health issues, such as the regulation of lodging houses, removal of nuisances, construction of sewers, water supply and the control of infectious diseases. Most meeting minutes will include cases of applications for poor relief, brought to the board by the inspector of the poor, who was in charge of the day-to-day administration of relief. Reports by medical and sanitary inspectors may be included. From 1894 parish council minutes may include references to the acquisition of buildings for public offices and ground for recreational purposes; the administration of rights of way; and the administration of some parish trusts.

The survival of records at a parish level is complicated by the overlapping responsibilities of kirk sessions, heritors and parochial boards. In kirk session records after 1845 it is possible to find poor relief accounts (either separately or within minute books) recording collections and payments to paupers. Heritors’ minutes after 1845 sometimes include records relating to poor relief and, occasionally, the minutes and other records of parochial boards. Parochial board records sometimes include pre-1845 material, which began life as heritors’ or kirk session records. Examples are minute books (of the heritors or of a heritors’ committee on the management of the poor’s fund), poor rolls, registers of poor persons, and accounts. Anyone researching poor relief (and other parochial matters) in this period is strongly advised to look at the catalogues to the records of all three of these bodies (kirk sessions, heritors and parochial boards) for any given parish.