Queen Mary I Forced the Poor to Wear Badges
Continuing with the Tudor Poor Laws, a few changes were made in the 1552 and 1555 Poor Acts. The first suggestion was the “collection of alms”, which was money collected for the benefit of helping the poor. However, since they had so much trouble with “sturdy beggars” in the past, they needed a way to distinguish the people who truly “deserved” help. During the reign of Queen Mary I, she made it a requirement that all poor people needed to register themselves and wear a badge on their clothing that identified themselves as being an “impotent, aged, or needy persons”. As you can imagine, this was incredibly embarrassing to wear a badge of poverty, and it was used to humiliate people who were in need.