From Recollections of a Sussex Parson by Revd Edward Boys Ellman, published posthumously in 1912:
The law of settlement till the last few years acted most unjustly. A rental of £10 a year or an apprenticeship gave a settlement.
Since I have been on the Board of the Guardians at Firle we have had several hard cases brought forward.
The first remedy was that a pauper was not to be removable from a parish where he had lived for three years with parish relief. John Russell left Berwick as a lad, and lived in Alfriston many years. He lost his work, and being a native of Berwick, applied to the Firle Union for relief. Our answer was that he was irremovable from Alfriston, and must apply there. A fortnight after he applied again and said that he had given up his house in Alfriston the day before and had the previous night slept in Berwick parish, in the Berwick end of Comp Barn, the other end of the barn being in Alfriston. The irremovability being thus broken we were obliged to admit him, his wife, and eight children into the union house as a Berwick pauper, instead of being chargeable to Alfriston.
William Russell had been shepherd at Rottingdean for forty-two years. Being past work he gave up his house and went to stay with a married daughter at [Firle] Preston for a few weeks to break his irremovability from Rottingdean. He applied for relief and we had to admit him into the union house.
A servant-girl, aged twenty-seven, was admitted to the Brighton Union with an illegitimate child. The Brighton Guardians made inquiries and could not find that she had ever made a settlement, so they inquired into her father’s settlement, which appeared to be Ripe, which parish he actually left twenty years before his daughter’s birth. Yet we were compelled to take her and her child.
Another man had not slept a night in Berwick for seventy-two years, and yet we had to admit him as a Berwick man.