St Marylebone Workhouse

[Bookbox]

It means he was passed back to his parish of legal settlement, which may or may not have been where he was born. It's a standard poor law term. Nothing to do with how full the workhouse was.

This would mean a removal order under the poor law Act of Settlement and Removal.

Many people were passed back to their parish of settlement under an informal agreement between parishes, without the need for a formal removal order. That might have been the case here. As part of the process he could, of course, have been passed to another workhouse. Unfortunately, I think there are no settlement records for St Marylebone at this date which would establish what happened in this case.

[Bookbox]

The Settlement Act allowed for the removal from a parish, back to their place of settlement, of newcomers whom local justices deemed "likely to be chargeable" to the parish poor rates.

But after 1795 (Pitt's Act, 35 Geo III c. 101), people could be removed only if they were actually chargeable. They could no longer be removed on the basis that they were likely to become chargeable. A minor improvement to the lot of the poor.