The intention of the act was to broaden the base of funding for relief provided by the Poor Laws.

Although the intention of the New Poor Law was to aggregate parishes into unions among which financial burden of building expensive workhouses was pooled, liability to the union was based on the composition of the parish.

[2] The Union Chargeability Act 1865 was thus passed so that the financial burden of paupers was shared more equally on a union-wide basis.

This was deemed unacceptable, as it was claimed the poor would travel to large cities in order to avail themselves of relief.

Removal of these proposed amendments finally allowed the bill to be passed on 15 May 1865.