The alleviation of poverty by various institutions in Scotland from medieval times until the present is a very large subject, which is of interest to a wide variety of researchers. For the purposes of the Knowledge Base this subject has been split into several separate entries, partly concerning the poor law in Scotland between 1579 and 1845, and between 1845 and 1948. There are also separate entries on poorhouses, and registers of the poor (the main source of information on paupers between 1845 and 1948). To see each of these click on one of the choices below:

Poor Law before 1845
Poor Law after 1845
Poorhouses
Registers of the Poor

Bibliography and Links
R Cage, The Scottish Poor Law 1745-1845 (Scottish Academic Press, 1981); Anne Gordon, Candie for the Foundling (Edinburgh, 1992); Cecil Sinclair, Tracing your Scottish Ancestors (Edinburgh, 1997); J A Haythornthwaite (ed.) Scotland in the Nineteenth Century: An Analytical bibliography of material relating to Scotland in Parliamentary Papers 1800-1900 (Aldershot, 1993).

In the SCAN Virtual Vault you can see examples of poor relief records from Scottish archives. The National Archives of Scotland website has a fact sheet on the subject of the Poor. One of the topics in the website of the Heatherbank Museum of Social Work is Poorhouses.

Image 2

Extract from a register of the poor for Glasserton parish (National Archives of Scotland, reference CO4/3/7/44)

1. What is the difference between a poorhouse and a workhouse?

2. What do the terms 'indoor relief' and 'outdoor relief' mean?

3. Where should I look for information on poorhouses for a school project?

4. I have seen the term 'General Register of the Poor' used. Does this refer to a central register of the poor, kept nationally for the whole of Scotland?

Image 1

A pauper family appearing before the Glasgow Juvenile Delinquency Board, 1886 Reproduced with permission of Glasgow City Archives. This and many other photographs of Glasgow are available at the Virtual Mitchell website.

In the SCAN Virtual Vault you can see examples of poor relief records from Scottish archives.