The poor of the village and its Charities

In the Middle Ages the Church and the monasteries became very wealthy, and some of that wealth trickled down either directly in the provision of food and shelter for the poor and the sick, or indirectly through the provision of employment and the support of many trades. The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII not only enriched the King and his cronies, but also removed that support for the local communities they served, leading to much hardship and "sturdy beggars".

The growing concern about social unrest which this and subsequent religious persecutions caused led to the establishment of the early Poor Laws in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. To some extent, local parishes had always "looked after their own" but now all parishes were compelled to provide work for the able, and relief for the disabled and the sick by means of a Poor Rate levied on the landowners of the parish. At the same time the charitable status of funds for the relief of "aged, impotent and poor people" was formerly recognised, and it is from this period that we find the first reference to a charity in Tasburgh established under the Will of Thomas Meek of 1598. This was followed by the Poor's Land Charity, also known as the Feoffment, or Town Lands Charity, to which over the years various owners left or gave pieces of land in the locality, and then in 1818 when the remaining common land in the village was enclosed and the parishioners lost their rights to collect fire wood, some of the land was set aside or allotted for the benefit of poor residents under the Fuel Allotment Charity.

There were also two smaller charitable bequests in the 19th century, the Thomas Clabburn and Miss Bateman's Charities, but these charities were never sufficient to provide for all of the needy, and one of the roles of the churchwardens was to oversee the collection and distribution of the Poor Rate which was the main form of relief. As people moved from parish to parish, perhaps in search of work, this led to disputes as to which parish should be responsible for supporting them, so the churchwardens or overseers would sometimes have to apply to the justices to resolve the matter, either by the grant of a removal order or a settlement certificate. For example in 1754 an order was granted to the Tasburgh overseers for the removal of Samuel Chambers and his wife Margaret from Tasburgh to Tharston.

That was not long after the churchwardens had built a cottage in Marl Bottom to house some of the old and infirm parishioners which became known as the Poor House or Town House, but 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act then allowed parishes to join together and establish workhouses. Tasburgh was a member of the Depwade Union whose workhouse on the main road at Pulham Market was built in 1836, and one of the earliest inmates from the village were Henry Livock and his wife Jemima who had previously been in the Tasburgh Poor House. At the workhouse the pair were separated and when in 1839 Jemima was found dead, Henry made such a fuss about her treatment that the matter was reported in the local newspapers.

Each parish was entitled to appoint one member to the Board of Guardians responsible for the administration of the workhouse and the first of Tasburgh's Guardians was William Betts who came to live at Tasburgh House as tenant of Old Hall Farm, and he was succeeded by his neighbour, John Balls, from High Road farm. In addition to collecting appropriate contributions from the parishes' Poor Rates, the Guardians also challenged whether or not other members of the family should be looking after or providing for inmates. For example, minutes of meetings record that the Overseers of Tasburgh should apply to the Magistrates for a warrant against Robert Atkins for leaving his family at the workhouse, whilst on another occasion they were directed to apply for a summons against Robert Burgess to show why he should not maintain his mother.

The Local Government Act of 1894 had transferred responsibility for some, but not all, local charities from the churchwardens to the parish council, but in 1927 the Charity Commission agreed that it made more sense to have a unified structure of management which resulted in the creation of Tasburgh United Charities with trustees from both the Church and the Parish Council. In 2023 the Charity Commission allowed the four constituent charities to be merged into a single fund.

Although for the benefit of the whole village, rather than just the poor, the last charity to be established was the Public Sand Gravel and Marl Pits Charity in 1981 under which the current Burrfeld Park on Low Road is administered by the Parish Council.