In 1662, in the aftermath of the Restoration, parliament passed new legislation for the settlement and removal of the poor. Important provisions were finalised in no more than a few days. But once the settlement of the poor was set in law it became an agent of historical change that affected society, state formation, and the lives of millions in Britain and beyond for centuries to come. Within a few decades, practices of local government were transformed. In towns and villages hierarchies of social status and gender were affected. The rising empire employed the settlement administration to...