Hannah Greatrix and the Law of Settlement
For a poor widow with a young baby, moving from one parish to another could have life-changing consequences. In 1750 Hannah Greatrix discovered that where you were legally settled mattered far more than where you happened to be living. Before a parish would provide relief, it first had to establish whether it was legally responsible for supporting you.
The surviving Removal Order records that Hannah Greatrix and her three-month-old son Edward were living in Yoxall when the parish authorities decided they were likely to become dependent on poor relief. Rather than support them themselves, the Overseers asked two local magistrates to determine which parish was legally responsible. After taking Hannah’s evidence on oath, they concluded that her legal settlement lay not in Yoxall but in Armitage.
The Order instructed the parish officers of Yoxall to:
“…remove and convey the said Hannah Grettrix and Edward her son from your said Parish… to the Parish of Armitage… and deliver them to the Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor there… who are required… forthwith to receive the said Hannah Grettrix and Edward her son… and provide for them as their own parishioners.”
To modern readers, some of the wording sounds surprisingly harsh. The Order states that Hannah and her baby had “lately intruded themselves” into Yoxall, suggesting deliberate wrongdoing. In eighteenth-century legal language, however, this simply meant that they had entered a parish where they had no legal settlement and might become chargeable to its Poor Rate. The document also describes George II as King of France, a reminder that English monarchs continued to use that ancient title long after any real claim to the French throne had disappeared.
Who was Hannah, and why was Armitage responsible for her?
The answer appears to lie with her husband rather than with Hannah herself. Yoxall’s marriage register records the marriage of Robert Grattrex and Hannah Hall on 4 April 1747. Later that year their son John was baptised there, followed in April 1750 by Edward, who was described as the son of Robert and Hannah Gratrix of Woodhouses.
Unlike Hannah, whose origins remain uncertain, Robert can almost certainly be identified. Armitage’s baptism register records the baptism of Robert Gretewicks, son of Thomas and Sarah, on 16 July 1721. No baptism for Hannah Hall has been found in either Armitage or Yoxall during the period when she was probably born, suggesting that she came from another parish.
Under the Poor Laws, a married woman’s legal settlement normally followed that of her husband. If Robert was indeed the man baptised in Armitage, Hannah’s settlement became Armitage when they married, regardless of where the couple chose to live afterwards. That single legal principle determined where she and her child would receive support.
The Removal Order raises almost as many questions as it answers. Only Hannah and the infant Edward are named. Robert is absent. This may indicate that he had died before the Order was issued, although no burial has yet been identified. Another possibility is that he was elsewhere, perhaps seeking work, but the surviving records provide no definite answer. Their elder son John, baptised in 1747, is also missing from the Order. Whether he had died, was living with relatives or was already being cared for elsewhere remains unknown.
Whatever the circumstances, the outcome was clear. Hannah and her baby were required to leave Yoxall and return to Armitage because the law said that Armitage was responsible for them. Whether Hannah had ever lived in the parish before is impossible to know. She may have arrived in a village where she had few family connections and perhaps no home of her own, simply because the Poor Laws recognised her late husband’s settlement rather than her own wishes.
Although the surviving records reveal little about Hannah’s later life, the Overseers’ accounts show that she was still receiving parish relief in 1764, when payments of 2 shillings and, a few days later, a further shilling were made to her. Fourteen years after the Removal Order, she was therefore still living in Armitage and remained dependent, at least in part, upon parish support.
Hannah Greatrix’s story illustrates one of the most important principles of the Old Poor Law. Before relief could be given, responsibility first had to be established. For poor families, that legal decision could determine where they lived, where they received support and, sometimes, where they were forced to begin their lives again.