First Memoir on Pauperism, Second Part, Post 2

The only European country that has systematized and applied the theories of public charity on a grand scale is England.

During the time of the religious revolution that changed the face of England, under Henry VIII, nearly all the monastic communities of the kingdom were dissolved, and as the property of these communities passed into the hands of the nobles and were not at all distributed among the people, the result was that the number of existing poor stayed the same, while the means by which their needs were to be provided for were in part destroyed.  The number of poor people then increased rapidly, and Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII, struck by the repellent appearance of the people's misery, wished to substitute an annual subsidy, furnished by the communities, for the alms that were dramatically reduced by the dissolution of the monasteries.

A law* passed in the 43rd year of the reign of that princess required that poor inspectors be appointed in each parish, that these inspectors have the right to tax the residents to support poor invalids and to provide work for the rest of the poor.

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* See:
1.  Blackstone, book I chapter 4
2.  The principal results of the 1833 inquiry on the state of the poor in the book entitled Extracts from the information received by his Majesty's commissioners as to the administration and operation of the Poor Laws
3.  The report of the Poor Laws commissioners
4.  Finally, the 1834 law that resulted from this work.