English Poor Law Cases, 1691-1834

The dataset consists of annotated cases concerning the right to a settlement by hiring under poor law legislation which was in force between 1691 and 1834. During this period, parishes could contest their liabilities to pay poor relief by taking appeals from decisions of the quarter sessions to the Court of King’s Bench. The decisions of the Court of King’s Bench were recorded in a number of nominate reports, and analysed in several treatises and textbooks. The dataset contains the text of relevant cases with annotations designed to facilitate the application of natural language processing techniques.

For further detail on potential uses of the dataset, see Simon Deakin and Linda Shuku, 'Exploring computational approaches to law: the evolution of judicial language in the Anglo-Welsh poor law, 1691-1834', Journal of Law and Society (2024) and CBR working paper series, https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/centres/business-research-cbr/publications/working-papers/.<p>This dataset was constructed as part of a project ('Legal Systems and Artificial Intelligence') assessing the implications of the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into legal systems in Japan and the United Kingdom. The project was jointly funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, part of UKRI, and the Japanese Science and Technology Agency (JST), and involved collaboration between Cambridge University (the Centre for Business Research, Department of Computer Science, and Faculty of Law) and Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo (the Graduate Schools of Law and Business Administration). Additional funding was provided by the Keynes Fund of the University of Cambridge through the project ‘Legal Evolution and Industrialisation: Computational Analysis of Historical Poor Law and Workmen’s Compensation Cases’.

In November 2024 an updated version of the dataset was added to the one initially deposited.</p>

本数据集收录了1691年至1834年间生效的济贫法（poor law）框架下，关于雇佣定居权的带注释判例。在此期间，教区可就季审法庭（quarter sessions）的裁决向王座法庭（Court of King’s Bench）提起上诉，以此抗辩其济贫救助给付责任。王座法庭的裁决被收录于多部命名判例汇编（nominate reports），并在若干专著与教科书中得到分析。本数据集包含相关判例文本及配套注释，旨在为自然语言处理（natural language processing, NLP）技术的应用提供便利。

如需了解本数据集潜在应用场景的更多细节，请参阅Simon Deakin与Linda Shuku发表于《法律与社会期刊》（*Journal of Law and Society*，2024年）的论文《探索法律计算路径：1691-1834年英威尔士济贫法中司法语言的演进》，以及商业研究中心（Centre for Business Research, CBR）工作论文系列，链接：https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/centres/business-research-cbr/publications/working-papers/.

本数据集是“法律体系与人工智能”（Legal Systems and Artificial Intelligence）项目的组成部分，该项目旨在评估人工智能（Artificial Intelligence, AI）引入日本与英国法律体系所带来的影响。本项目由隶属于英国研究与创新署（UKRI）的英国经济与社会研究理事会，以及日本科学技术振兴机构（Japan Science and Technology Agency, JST）联合资助，合作方包括剑桥大学（商业研究中心、计算机科学系与法学院）与东京一桥大学（法学研究科与工商管理研究科）。额外资助由剑桥大学凯恩斯基金通过“法律演进与工业化：历史济贫法与工人赔偿判例的计算分析”项目提供。

2024年11月，本数据集的更新版被添加至初始提交的版本库中。