Our one-day hybrid workshop (in person and on Teams) will consider the question of corruption in parish government in the long-eighteenth century, starting with a plenary paper from Professor Mark Knights (Warwick University). Papers will address the management of the Old Poor Law and other parts of local administration: were overseers of the poor and other office holders guilty of wilful deception and cynical self-enrichment, or were they guilty of no more than inefficiency, poor accounting, and laziness? This discussion goes beyond contemporary allegations that parochial officers enjoyed feasting at the ratepayers’ expense to consider the mechanisms for decision-making and spending, plus details about the individual winners and losers in these scenarios.