Life in the Victorian and Edwardian Workhouse E-Book

Michelle Higgs

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 357

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

Life in a workhouse during the Victorian and Edwardian eras has been popularly characterised as a brutal existence. Charles Dickens famously portrayed workhouse inmates as being dirty, neglected, overworked and at the mercy of exploitative masters. While there were undoubtedly establishments that conformed to this stereotype, there is also evidence of a more enlightened approach that has not yet come to public attention. This book establishes a true picture of what life was like in a workhouse, of why inmates entered them and of what they had to endure in their day-to-day routine. A comprehensive overview of the workshouse system gives a real and compelling insight into social and moral reasons behind their growth in the Victorian era, while the kind of distinctions that were drawn between inmates are looked into, which, along with the social stigma of having been a workhouse inmate, tell us much about class attitudes of the time. The book also looks at living conditions and duties of the staff who, in many ways, were prisoners of the workhouse. Michelle Higgs combines thorough research with a fresh outlook on a crucial period in British history, and in doing so paints a vivid portrait of an era and its social standards that continues to fascinate, and tells us much about the society we live in today.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

While writing this book, I received help and encouragement in locating information and illustrations from a number of different sources and institutions. I would like to express my gratitude to the following:

The staff of Dudley Archives, Durham County Record Office and Ceredigion Record Office; the Northern General Hospital History Project, Sheffield; the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Mike Spick at the Sheffield Local Studies Library; Frances Collinson at the Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse – The Museum of Norfolk Life; Philip Bye of the East Sussex Record Office; Elaine Fisher at the Slough Museum; Paul Johnson and Tim Padfield at the National Archives; Elizabeth Green of Hackney Archives; Dr Paul Davies; Margaret Towler; Ian Beach; Lisa Robinson; Ann Gray; Derek George and Judith Hawkins.

Thanks are also due to Kevin Towers of the West London Mental Health NHS Trust for granting permission to publish information from the records of Alfred Woodhurst; Lyn Howsam of the Northern General History Project for being so generous with her time and research; Chris Sanham for sharing information from the Maria Rye Children Database 1868-1896 and John Sayers for his research on specific home children in Canada.

I would also like to express my thanks to the following people, who generously shared their research about their ancestors and without whose help this book would be the poorer:

Mari Ambrose; Jill Barrett; Phil Bristow; Benjamin Caine; Harry E. Clarke; Wilfred William Ellesmore; Roger Harpin; Carl Higgs; Christopher J. Hogger; Judith Holmes; Bruce Isted; Maud Jarvis; Derek Jenkins, Barbara Towle, Richard Robinson and Joy Bedson; Sheila Kirk; Colin Leathley; Pat McGrath; Yvonne Moore; Sandy Norman; Lynn Nugent and Norma Robinson; Edwin Pickett; Ruth Piggott; Ken Ripper; Alan Tweedale and Janette Woodhead.

Thanks are also due to the late Margaret Twelvetree for sharing her memories of Pontefract and Stratford-on-Avon Union Workhouses; and to the late Maurice Cuerton for his research about his ancestor Charles Cuerton, and to his widow Marie for granting permission to publish the information.

Finally, I would like to thank my husband Carl for his unfailing love and support, and my family and friends for their encouragement during the writing of this book.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of images included in this book. The publishers would be grateful for further information concerning any image for which we have been unable to trace a copyright holder.

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1    The New Poor Law

2    The Workhouse System

3    The Able-Bodied Men

4    The Able-Bodied Women

5    The Children

6    The Elderly

7    The Infirm

8    The Lunatics

9    The Vagrants

10    The Master and Matron

11    The Schoolteachers

12    The Medical Officer

13    The Nursing Staff

14    The Porter

15    The Chaplain

16    The Guardians

17    The Clerk

18    The Relieving Officer

Bibliography

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, generations of working-class families lived in fear of the workhouse, variously called ‘the union’, ‘the bastille’, ‘the spike’ or simply ‘the house’. This fear has become such an integral part of workhouse mythology that it is sometimes difficult to separate fact from fiction. Which is the more accurate representation of the average Victorian workhouse? The horrific conditions of the workhouse in which poor Oliver Twist stayed, or the well-run example at Wapping which Dickens visited in 1860?1 The answer is paradoxically neither and both. There is no such thing as a typical workhouse because the conditions within it depended on the calibre of its staff, ‘the size of the union’ and ‘the wealth of the ratepayers.’2

What was life really like in a workhouse, either as an inmate or a member of staff? This book aims to identify the types of people who entered the workhouse and their reasons for doing so, their living conditions and diet, the work they had to undertake and to look into their monotonous day-to-day routine. It will also describe the roles of the different members of staff, the conditions they worked and lived in, and their reasons for becoming workhouse officers.

By piecing together the available evidence from workhouse records and regulations, censuses, dietary tables, workhouse plans and local studies, it is possible to build up a picture of workhouse life. This will always be slightly out of focus as records are missing or incomplete and direct evidence from inmates and staff, in the form of letters and testimony, is rare.

While undertaking research for this book, a small, at first seemingly insignificant, detail was found. Although the inmates and staff of all workhouses were recorded in the national censuses, anyone trying to locate their ancestors in Dudley Union Workhouse on the 1861 census is faced with an immediate problem. The enumerator carefully named all the members of staff in the workhouse but recorded the inmates simply with initials.3 No first or last names are given.

It is not known if this method of recording was at the instigation of the workhouse master or whether the decision was taken by the enumerator himself. However, it could be interpreted in two ways. There was a real stigma attached to being a workhouse inmate. Recording the inmates with initials could be evidence of a compassionate workhouse master or enumerator, trying to preserve the anonymity of the inmates. Alternatively, it might also be evidence that the inmates were viewed as simply initials in a register, not worthy of a full identity.

Whichever interpretation is correct, in other censuses researched, the names of inmates are given in full. This is just one example which illustrates that the running of workhouses varied throughout the country because they were run at a local level. No two workhouses were ever ‘exactly alike’.4 As a result, the experience of workhouse life for both inmates and staff differed widely across England and Wales.

NOTES

1.    Crowther, M.A., The Workhouse System 1834-1929, (1981), p3

2.    Ibid., p6

3.    1861 Census, Sedgley, RG 9/2046 E.D. 11

4.    Crowther, op. cit., p5

1

THE NEW POOR LAW

In November 1836, a ‘most daring’ attempt was made to murder Richard Ellis, the master of Abingdon Union Workhouse. Shots were fired from the workhouse garden through the sitting-room window, narrowly missing the master’s sister and an elderly pauper. Abingdon was the first of a new breed of workhouse built as a result of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. The workhouse had been open for inmates for about a month and it was believed that the violent attack against the master was a protest against the new Poor Law legislation.1

Before 1834, each parish was responsible for its own poor. The able-bodied who had fallen on hard times or were unemployed, for whatever reason, could expect to be granted outdoor relief from the parish overseer of the poor in his or her own home. The sick and elderly might also be looked after in a small parish workhouse which was ‘seen as a relatively unthreatening and even friendly institution’.2

THE NEW POOR LAW IN ACTION

After 1834, there were four main changes to the Poor Law system. Firstly, a central authority, called the Poor Law Commission, was to regulate the new Poor Law. The Poor Law Commission, based in London, was made up of three commissioners who had the power to issue rules and regulations for the new Poor Law. They were supported in their role by assistant commissioners. (From 1847, responsibility for the Poor Law passed to the Poor Law Board. After 1871, the Poor Law was administered by the Local Government Board.)

Secondly, parishes were to group together into ‘unions’ to benefit from economies of scale. It was proposed that approximately thirty parishes join together to create each new union. Each union was to be run by a board of guardians which would meet weekly and report regularly to the Commission. It was the responsibility of the assistant commissioners to oversee the setting up of the new unions. However, it was no easy matter to obtain agreement from each parish, and those parishes which had joined together under earlier legislation known as the Gilbert Act often refused to be brought into the new system.

Thirdly, accommodation was to be provided for paupers in workhouses under ‘less eligible’ or worse conditions than those of the poorest independent labourer. The intention was that only the truly destitute would seek relief in the workhouse and that it would be a last resort. Any applicant who refused to enter the workhouse was said to have ‘failed the workhouse test’.3

In the 1830s and 1840s, these new workhouses, the ‘unions’, like the one at Abingdon, sprang up across England and Wales approximately twenty miles apart. The buildings were austere and prison-like and were deliberately designed to be starkly different from the more domestic parish workhouses of the eighteenth century. The design and appearance of the new union workhouses created a real visual deterrent and was ‘meant to represent the new approach to relief provision.’4

The old parish workhouse at Framlingham, Suffolk.

Finally, and most contentiously, ‘outdoor’ relief for the able-bodied was to be minimal so that those applying for poor relief had to enter the workhouse. The Commission’s Report of 1834 concluded that ‘the great source of abuse is outdoor relief afforded to the able-bodied’.5 One of the main objections to building new workhouses for both paupers and guardians was the stipulation that outdoor relief be reduced or abolished to the able-bodied poor. To withdraw such a basic, traditional right, and force paupers to enter the workhouse was thought to be inhumane and implied that poverty was a crime.

In addition, outdoor relief was considerably cheaper than indoor relief. It was argued that the building of new workhouses would be a heavy burden on the ratepayers. The small Lampeter Union delayed building a new workhouse until 1876 because the guardians calculated that ‘if a man went into the workhouse he would cost the Union 1s 9d a week, but if he was given relief outside the workhouse it would cost only 9d, a saving of 1 shilling per week.’6

Many unions chose to adapt existing parish workhouses rather than bear the expense of building new ones. This decision was not popular with the Poor Law Commission, as adapted parish workhouses were rarely able to provide sufficient accommodation to classify the inmates separately.

By 1840, 14,000 parishes had been incorporated into unions with only 800 parishes remaining outside the system. However, most of the 350 new workhouses built by 1839 were in the south of the country.7

PROTESTS AGAINST THE NEW WORKHOUSES

A major flaw in the legislation of 1834 was that the Commission had no power to order the building of new workhouses, although they could order alterations to existing buildings. In practice, unions could repeatedly delay implementing the new Poor Law, and many chose to do so.

The authors of the Report failed to recognise the differences between the industrial north and the more agricultural south and thus their contrasting experiences of poverty and treatment of the poor. The attack at the Abingdon Union Workhouse was by no means the only form of protest against the Poor Law Amendment Act, dubbed by critics the ‘Whig Starvation and Infanticide Act’. With resistance strongest in the north, there were riots against the new Poor Law in 1837 and 1838 in Oldham, Rochdale, Todmorden, Huddersfield and Bradford.8

The slums of Tower Street, Dudley, where the old parish workhouse was situated.

As a result, there were very few workhouses built in the West Riding of Yorkshire or in Lancashire until the 1850s and 1860s.9 However, protests against the new Poor Law were not confined to the north. There was staunch opposition in Wales while few new workhouses were built in Cornwall, and in Dudley, Worcestershire, the new union workhouse was not opened until 1859.10

The Andover Union Workhouse built to a standard cruciform design. (Illustrated London News, 7 November 1846.)

DESIGNS OF NEW WORKHOUSES

The Poor Law Commission issued model plans for the building of the new union workhouses, some of which were produced by the architect Sampson Kempthorne. Although the unions could, in theory, invite designs from other architects and builders, in practice, most of the new workhouses were based on one of Kempthorne’s designs. There were two main designs for a three-storey mixed workhouse – one cruciform and the other Y-shaped with a hexagonal boundary wall.11

The first new union workhouse at Abingdon was a variation on Kempthorne’s first Y-shaped design with an extra fourth storey. The British Almanac noted how it provided ‘with great facility, the division into six yards, for the better classification of the inmates. In the centre [of the] building are the governor’s rooms, for the inspection of the whole establishment.’12

Whichever design was chosen, the layout of every union workhouse was similar. In each design, there were six exercise yards for the infirm, the able-bodied, and children aged seven to fifteen, with the sexes segregated. These areas were separated by high walls. There were day rooms for the infirm and able-bodied, a schoolroom and a master’s parlour which was usually placed at a central position so that he could observe the day-to-day routine in all parts of the workhouse.

The walls which formed the boundaries around the exercise yards to the outside world contained the workrooms, washrooms, bakehouses, the ‘dead house’, the refractory ward and the receiving ward. On the first floor were the dormitories, the master’s bedrooms, the dining hall and the Board Room where the guardians would hold their weekly meetings. The lying-in ward for expectant mothers and the nursery was on the third floor separating the boys’ and girls’ bedrooms.13

The design of the new union workhouses allowed for the most contentious of systems to be put into place: the classification and segregation of the sexes and families.

NOTES

1.    Higginbotham, P., Abingdon Workhouse <http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Abingdon/> Oxford University web, Oxford, 2000

2.    Murray, P., Poverty and Welfare 1830-1914, (1999), p26

3.    Ibid., p26

4.    Englander, D., Poverty and Poor Law Reform in 19th Century Britain, 1834-1914: From Chadwick to Booth, (1998), p31

5.    Digby, A., The Poor Law in Nineteenth-Century England, (1985), p11

6.    Lewis, W.J., A History of Lampeter, (1997), p112

7.    Murray, op. cit., p35

8.    Englander. op. cit., p16

9.    Murray, op. cit., p35

10.  GDU/1/4, 13 May 1859

11.  See essay by R. Wildman in Longmate N., The Workhouse, (2003), p287

12.  The British Almanac quoted by Wildman R. in Ibid., p288

13.  Ibid., pp89-90

2

THE WORKHOUSE SYSTEM

Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the threat of the workhouse cast a long shadow over the lives of many who lived just above the breadline. Before the advent of the welfare state, all life could be found in the workhouse because it had to ‘combine the functions of schools, asylums, hospitals and old people’s homes, as well as being the last refuge for the homeless and unemployed.’1

The workhouse inmates were therefore a mixture of the elderly, the sick and the destitute, abandoned mothers and children, lunatics and those without employment, either seasonal or in times of economic depression. These were people who were forced into the workhouse as a last resort.

The number of inmates typically decreased during the summer, particularly in rural areas, because seasonal, labour-intensive agricultural work could easily be obtained by men, women and children. Numbers increased dramatically in winter, particularly if the weather was harsh, and in times of severely depressed trade and high unemployment.

ADMISSION TO THE WORKHOUSE

There were three ways in which a pauper could be admitted to the workhouse. Firstly, he or she could present an order from the relieving officer. Secondly, an order could be issued by the board of guardians. Finally, ‘in any case of sudden or urgent necessity’, the master could authorise admission to the workhouse.2

On arrival, the pauper would be taken to the receiving ward by the porter. It was the porter’s responsibility to search male paupers for prohibited articles, which included alcohol, cards and dice, matches and ‘letters or printed papers, as books, pamphlets, etc., being of an improper tendency.’ 3 Female paupers were searched by the matron.

The medical officer would then examine the pauper to determine if he or she was able-bodied or sick, and therefore which class the pauper would fall into. The classification system was a strict form of segregation and consisted of seven classes as follows:

Class 1

Men infirm through age or any other cause.

Class 2

Able-bodied men and youths above the age of fifteen years.

Class 3

Boys above the age of seven years, and under that of fifteen.

Class 4

Women infirm through age or any other cause.

Class 5

Able-bodied women and girls above the age of fifteen years.

Class 6

Girls above the age of seven years and under that of fifteen.

Class 7    

Children under seven years of age.

The bell at the Stourbridge Union Workhouse. (Courtesy of Carl Higgs.)

If the pauper was deemed to be sick, he or she would be sent to the sick ward. If the pauper was able-bodied and free from disease, he or she would be sent to ‘the part of the Workhouse, assigned to the class to which he [or she] may belong.’4

Before leaving the receiving ward, the pauper was bathed and disinfected. In most unions, his or her hair would be crudely cropped. Finally, the pauper was given an ill-fitting workhouse uniform and a pair of heavy hob-nailed boots, while his or her personal clothes were taken away, to be returned only on leaving the workhouse.

Uniforms varied around the country but most were dull brown, grey or blue and all were shapeless. At the Ecclesall Bierlow Union, the male inmates wore uniform suits made of ‘fustian or drab moleskin with calico shirts and strong shoes’ while the women wore ‘gingham gowns or black or blue worsted skirts with blouses and blue linen aprons… [and] Shambery petticoats and coarse cambric caps…’5

In 1843, the guardians of the Warrington Union ‘selected a dress for the men consisting of a coat and waistcoat made from grey cloth with trowsers [sic] of brown fustian-striped cotton for womens bed gowns – blue cotton for petticoats – black and white straw bonnets and mob caps…’ The guardians added that the men’s clothing ‘should be made from dark olive velveteen with metal buttons on which the words “Warrington Union” would be stamped.’6

The workhouse uniform immediately marked out the pauper as an inmate if it was worn in the street. While the mandatory wearing of a workhouse uniform could be seen as a show of discipline and an attempt to de-humanise the pauper, there was another more practical reason. In an institution where large numbers of people lived closely together, the spread of disease was an ever present risk. Bathing the pauper, taking away his or her often filthy clothes and replacing them with a clean uniform could help to minimise this risk.

In 1838, after a visit to Dudley Union Workhouse, the Assistant Poor Law Commissioner drew the attention of the board of guardians to the fact that ‘the inmates of the Workhouse were not clothed in dresses belonging to the Union’, at the same time he states that it was ‘not his wish that the Inmates should be dressed in any way as a mark of degradation, but for the purpose of preventing the introduction of disease and securing cleanliness – and further in order that the Paupers may on their leaving the Workhouse be furnished with their own clothing in the same state (with the exception of it being cleansed) as it was on their entering the Workhouse.’7

Entrance to the Birmingham Union Workhouse, Western Road. (Courtesy of Lisa Robinson.)

SEPARATION OF THE FAMILY

The next stage was feared the most: the separation of the family and the sexes, husbands from wives, parents from children, boys from girls. There was no way to avoid this rule. An able-bodied man with a family could not enter the workhouse by himself. The whole family had to apply for relief and enter the workhouse together. It is very unlikely that the decision to enter a union workhouse would ever have been taken lightly.

The separation of the family, including husbands from wives, and the forced ending of normal sexual relations within marriage was intended to improve the moral fibre of paupers and prevent ‘breeding’ or procreation of new paupers. This was the inhumane face of the workhouse: the break-up of the natural family unit and the relationship between parent and child. It was felt that it was particularly important to separate children from the other paupers, especially the vagrants and able-bodied women, many of whom were considered immoral.

This splitting-up of families led to considerable misery and distress and was unacceptable to many paupers. Apart from staying in a large, bleak, prison-like building which, in itself was intimidating, especially for children and the elderly, the fact that every pauper had to cope on their own could be intensely distressing. Even young children were separated from their families, and only children under the age of four were allowed to sleep with their mothers.8

Charles Chaplin, who spent some time in the Lambeth Union Workhouse as a child in the 1890s, recalled the moment when he and his sibling were first admitted with their mother:

Then the forlorn bewilderment of it struck me: for there we were made to separate. Mother going in one direction to the women’s ward and we in another to the children’s. How well I remember the poignant sadness of that first visiting day: the shock of seeing Mother enter the visiting-room garbed in workhouse clothes. How forlorn and embarrassed she looked! In one week she had aged and grown thin…9

Despite the fact that legislation was passed in 1847 to allow old married couples to stay together, in the majority of cases elderly couples who had lived together for a lifetime continued to be separated on entry to the workhouse.10

There were countless examples of misery caused by the segregation policy. One man who was deeply affected by it was James Lilley, a thirty-three-year-old collier who was an asthma sufferer. He was admitted to Dudley Union Workhouse on 20 October 1862 with his wife Sarah and three young daughters, but was discharged the same day by his ‘own wish because he was afraid to be in the receiving ward without his wife.’11

It seems that James Lilley would rather have starved in the streets than be separated from his wife and family. Just over a month later, on 29 November 1862, Sarah Lilley was re-admitted to the Dudley Union with her three daughters. She was described as a widow. She left the following day of her own accord.12

Once admitted, paupers were free to leave at any time after giving notice to the master, but it would have been a difficult decision if there were no family or friends to turn to outside of the workhouse. A small minority of inmates were regular ‘ins and outs’, who came and went at their own desire, and according to their need at the time.

WORKHOUSE DAILY ROUTINE

Life inside the workhouse was deliberately disciplined and monotonous. When the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act was passed, the Commissioners drew up a model timetable which all unions were to follow. This was amended only slightly some years later.

Punctuated by the ringing of the workhouse bell, every minute of the paupers’ daily lives was accounted for. The inmates rose at 5 a.m. from March to September and at 7 a.m. during the rest of the year. Half an hour after rising, there was a daily roll-call in the various wards. There were prayers before breakfast from 6 to 7 a.m. (or 7.30 to 8 a.m. in winter). This was followed by work tasks until 12 p.m. After the hour for dinner, there was more work until 6 p.m. when supper was served, after which there were more prayers. Paupers had to be in bed by 8 p.m. at the latest.13 At mealtimes ‘order and decorum’14 was to be maintained. Most unions interpreted this to mean that meals were to be eaten in silence. Smoking, alcohol, cards and games of chance were all forbidden.

ACCOMMODATION

Although the union workhouses were administered centrally by the Poor Law Commission in London, the conditions within each individual workhouse depended upon the calibre of the staff and the generosity of the board of guardians and ratepayers. Many unions provided the bare minimum of essentials for the inmates and others were dubbed ‘pauper palaces’ for their alleged extravagance.15

An entry in the Dudley Union Visiting Committee records in December 1861 explains the financial situation more fully:

The Committee are anxious to promote the comfort and happiness [of the inmates] in every possible way and to have the House made as complete as is desirable – consistent with the duties which the Guardians owe the ratepayers.16

Inside the workhouse, furnishings were deliberately kept to a minimum. Beds were usually wooden and few inmates had ‘the luxury of a single bed.’17 This was despite the order that ‘More than two paupers, any one of whom is above the age of seven years, shall not be allowed to occupy the same bed, unless in the case of a mother and infant children.’18

Admission and discharge register from 1891 recording the admission of the Gribbon sisters to the Sedgefield Union Workhouse (see p.43). (U/Se 122. Reproduced by permission of the Durham County Record Office.)

When the Lampeter Union Workhouse was opened in 1877, the guardians ordered bedding for the new wards. They included fifty palliasses (straw mattresses) and fifty tuck mattresses, fifty pairs of sheets and fifty pairs of blankets plus forty-four quilts.19 Pillows were considered an unnecessary luxury in most union workhouses.

Until late in the nineteenth century, the walls of most workhouse day and sleeping wards were bare, while in the dining room there were only ‘the roughest wooden tables and backless benches.’20 Apart from a Bible, ‘adults had nothing to read and children nothing to play with.’21

DIET

The diet inside the union workhouse matched the conditions – sufficient but extremely monotonous. Starvation was unlikely as three meals a day were guaranteed. Most unions chose one of the six model diets set out by the Poor Law Commission which supplied each inmate with between 137 and 182oz of solid food per week including meat, bread, gruel, milk and cheese.

The rations were strictly recorded by the workhouse master and were considerably less than the 292oz of solid food provided for prison inmates, but still more than the 122oz the average independent labourer received.22

The house diet at the Dudley Union Workhouse in July 1874 consisted of 5oz of solid meat on two days, bacon on one day (4oz for men and 3oz for women), suet pudding on two days and broth and pea soup on the remaining two days. For breakfast, the inmates were given porridge, and for supper, bread and cheese.23

It has been argued that the quantities of bread allowed in the workhouse ‘were higher than the poor could afford.’24 Research has revealed that meat was a rarity for the poorer Lancashire workers in the 1860s,25 yet it was usually offered two days a week in the workhouse.

The proposed design for the Canterbury Union Workhouse. (Illustrated London News, 7 November 1846.)

In fact, it was the quality rather than the quantity of food which inmates and observers criticised. Gruel was particularly unpalatable as it was ‘a thin oatmeal porridge made with water and unflavoured with milk or sugar…’26 The coarse, often stale, workhouse bread was ‘served with such small quantities of fat that it was difficult to eat.’27

The workhouse medical officer could make suggestions to alter the diet, which then had to be sanctioned by the guardians and the central authorities. In 1883, the guardians of the Dudley Union wrote to the Local Government Board with their plans for ‘substituting Fish for Dinner one Day in every week instead of meat.’ This was considered ‘more beneficial in promoting the health of the Inmates as well as reducing the cost of maintenance…’ The fish was to include ‘Cod Fish, Codlings and Haddock.’28

Menus were only varied on special occasions such as the traditional Christmas dinner of roast beef and plum pudding plus fruit, tobacco and ale, usually paid for by benefactors, or at Easter when buns were often provided.

WORK TASKS

Every able-bodied pauper had to complete work tasks as part of their daily routine. The partially disabled paupers were also to be ‘occupied to the extent of their ability.’29 A variety of tasks were demanded of the inmates across England and Wales including oakum-picking, stone-breaking, pumping water, working the ‘crank’ of a corn mill and cleaning. The work tasks are described more fully in the chapters on the able-bodied men, the able-bodied women, the elderly and the vagrants.

PUNISHMENTS

As order and discipline in the workhouse had to be maintained at all times, there was a long list of punishable misdemeanours. Offences which would deem a pauper disorderly included using obscene or profane language, threatening to strike or assault anyone, refusing or neglecting to work and playing at cards or other games of chance. The master could punish a disorderly pauper:

…by substituting, during a time not greater than forty-eight hours, for his dinner, as prescribed by the Dietary, a meal consisting of eight ounces of bread, or one pound of cooked potatoes or boiled rice, and also by withholding from him, during the same period, all butter, cheese, tea, sugar, or broth, which such pauper would otherwise receive…30

A pauper would be deemed refractory if he or she repeated or committed more than one of the disorderly offences. Other refractory offences included drunkenness, disobeying or insulting any workhouse officer or guardian, striking any person and damaging workhouse property. The guardians could order a refractory pauper ‘to be punished by confinement in a separate room, with or without an alteration in diet…’ for up to twenty-four hours.31

The master had to keep a meticulous record of any punishments meted out in the workhouse. At the Foleshill Union Workhouse in November 1865, Hannah Smith was punished for ‘Swearing and causing a great disturbance in the washhouse and ward, and being insolent to the Master of the workhouse after being cautioned three days before.’ Her punishment was ‘Alteration of diet for two days as per Article 29.’32

SETTLEMENT AND REMOVAL

The laws of settlement, which were relics of the old Poor Law, were still strictly enforced. In the 1860s, a Poor Law Inspector reported the case of a:

…tradesman who had lost his job just before he had lived long enough in the same place to become irremovable. He was ordered back to his native county, and even though, before he could be moved, he had recovered his old job and ceased to draw relief, he was still carried off forcibly from the place where he had both a home and work to a place where he had neither…33

Later in the nineteenth century, by mutual agreement unions might give out-relief to ‘non-settled’ paupers whose legal settlement was in another union, instead of removing them.

NOTES

1.    Crowther, M.A., The Workhouse System 1834-1929, (1981), p3

2.    Art. 88, Consolidated General Order, 1847

3.    May, T., The Victorian Workhouse, (1997), p19

4.    Art. 93, Consolidated General Order, 1847

5.    Flett, J., The Story of the Workhouse and the Hospital at Nether Edge, (1985), p8

6.    Forrest, D., Warrington’s Poor and the Workhouse 1725-1851, (2001), p22

7.    GDU/1/1, 30 December 1838

8.    Digby, A., Pauper Palaces, (1978), p156

9.    Charles Chaplin quoted in Land, N., Victorian Workhouse: A Study of the Bromsgrove Union Workhouse 1836-1901, (1990), p11

10.  Horn, P., Labouring Life in the Victorian Countryside, (1987), p209

11.  GDU/6/1/ 4, 20 October 1862

12.  GDU/6/1/ 4, 29 November 1862

13.  Longmate, N., The Workhouse, (2003), p92

14.  Art. 104, Consolidated General Order, 1847

15.  See Digby, op. cit.

16.  GDU/1/5, 3 December 1861

17.  Longmate, op. cit., p92

18.  Art. 111, Consolidated General Order, 1847

19.  CBG Lampeter, 378, 26 January 1877

20.  Longmate, op. cit., p92

21.  Englander, D., Poverty and Poor Law Reform in 19th Century Britain, 1834-1914: From Chadwick to Booth, (1998), p32

22.  Longmate, op. cit., pp93-94

23.  G/DU 3/1/ 2, 20 July 1874

24.  Crowther, op. cit., p215

25.  Ibid., p215

26.  Longmate, op. cit., p94

27.  Crowther, op. cit., p215

28.  G/DU 1/1/5, 21 December 1860

29.  Art. 208, No. 6, Consolidated General Order, 1847

30.  Art. 129, Consolidated General Order, 1847

31.  Art. 130, Consolidated General Order, 1847

32.  Castle E. and Wishart B., Foleshill Union Workhouse Punishment Book 1864-1900, (1999), p10

33.  Longmate, op. cit., p21

3

THE ABLE-BODIED MEN

Able-bodied male inmates were a rarity in workhouses across England and Wales, except in periods of economic depression or harsh weather. It was this class of inmate, more than any other, that the workhouse and the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was designed to deter.

WHO WAS CLASSED AS ABLE-BODIED?

A man was classed as able-bodied if his health or age did not prevent him from working, and if he was merely destitute because of a lack of work. Able-bodied men fell into Class 2 of the workhouse classification scheme which also included youths above fifteen years of age. When they did appear in the workhouse, able-bodied men were more likely to be unmarried or widowed than men with families.

Underpinning the new Poor Law was the ‘workhouse test’ whereby outdoor relief to the able-bodied was to be abolished and the workhouse offered in its place. It was believed that only the truly destitute would be prepared to enter the workhouse. Early feedback from unions in the south was encouraging with a large drop in the number of able-bodied men seeking relief reported.

For example, in December 1836 at the Cuckfield Union, 149 men applied for relief. 118 men were offered the workhouse but only six men accepted. This was at a time of harsh, snowy weather when there was no outdoor work available. Sixty more men applied for relief and five entered the workhouse, although three of these men left within a few hours.1 While these statistics were trumpeted as proof of the success of the new Poor Law, it is not known what happened to the men who refused to enter the workhouse. The authorities believed these men to be self-supporting, but if they were unable to find work during the winter both they and their families would have experienced abject poverty until the weather turned for the better.

The Bosham Workhouse was one of the workhouses in the Westbourne Union which, under the old system, was well-known for the laxity of its discipline. When the able-bodied labourers were told that they would receive no relief except in the new Westbourne Workhouse, ‘they all refused to enter it and all found work for themselves and have supported themselves ever since.’2

Daniel Smart, the clerk for the Westbourne Union reported that: ‘The labourers are now much more diligent and willing to please… Masters are therefore more willing to employ them. Many for the same reason give higher wages…the greater part have been absorbed.’3

The Present and the Future. Many working-class families chose to pay subscriptions to a sick club or friendly society, as a kind of insurance policy in the event of illness. (Punch, 15 November 1862.)

CONTINUATION OF OUTDOOR-RELIEF FOR THE ABLE-BODIED

The absence of able-bodied men in the workhouse did not necessarily mean that the Act was a successful deterrent. As with so many other aspects of workhouse administration, the fact that unions were governed locally by a board of guardians meant that they responded to problems in their own local area in the way they thought best. Where there were localised issues such as depression in a particular industry or an extremely harsh winter, the guardians chose to ignore the Poor Law Commission’s order that no able-bodied man was to receive outdoor relief. Boards of guardians which were known to be particularly benevolent towards the local poor also defied the order and continued to give outdoor relief.

For example, at the Bromsgrove Union in January 1841, the guardians recorded that:

Thomas Hawkins aged fifty, an able-bodied man residing in and belonging to Tardebigge, a widower having applied to this Board for outdoor relief until the weather breaks; he being unable to follow his usual employment of brickmaking in consequence of the frost and to procure other work, and he having eleven children at home only one of whom is able to maintain himself at the present time, four partially and six being wholly dependent on their father for support. The Board considering this a case of emergency and one sufficiently urgent to justify them in departing from the Rule of the Poor Law Commission prohibiting outdoor relief from being given to any able bodied person. Order that relief be given to Thomas Hawkins to the amount of twenty shillings by eight weekly instalments by way of a loan.4

The weather also caused problems in February 1855, when the guardians of the Dudley Union reported that the able-bodied men were ‘in a state of fearful destitution through not being able to obtain work on account of the present intense frost (who will all be able to get employment when the frost shall break up).’ It was decided to ‘administer relief from day-to-day in kind.’5

Seasonable Advice – Put By For A Frosty Day. (Punch, 23 February 1861.)

From the early days of the Poor Law Amendment Act, rural Norfolk unions had adhered strictly to the regulations prohibiting outdoor relief to able-bodied men. However, the difficult farming conditions of the 1840s meant that ‘the trend in poor relief was thereafter reversed in Norfolk.’6

The scarcity of employment in key industries also caused problems in industrial unions. At one such union in December 1847, there were ‘numerous applications for relief from able-bodied labourers, Miners and Workmen from Ironworks’ and there was a ‘certainty of a very great increase owing to the stopage [sic] of many Ironworks in which men of the above descriptions are employed…’7

However, despite fears about a nationwide economic depression, in the 1860s just over 5 per cent of indoor paupers were able-bodied men and they usually made up just under 5 per cent of outdoor paupers.8 Even during times of severe hardship such as the Lancashire cotton famine, the proportion of able-bodied men on outdoor relief ‘was only about 6 per cent of the national total.’9

While the motives of some unions for granting outdoor relief to able-bodied men with families were humanitarian, it was widely acknowledged that the burden on the ratepayer was higher if families had to be maintained as indoor paupers in the workhouse. This was because a grant of outdoor relief was insufficient and had to be ‘augmented by small earnings and receipts from private charity.’10 In 1860, it cost nearly 3s 6d a week to maintain a pauper in an Eastern Counties workhouse but the average for outdoor relief was significantly less at 1s 9d a week.11

In December 1871, the Local Government Board sent out a circular to the unions across England and Wales ‘calling for greater strictness, including the total refusal of relief, except in the workhouse, to able-bodied single men and women, as well as to unmarried mothers, deserted wives and widows with only one child.’12 In 1877, after a query from the guardians of one union, the Local Government Board stated that ‘so long as there is room in the Workhouse, they do not think it expedient that outdoor relief should be given to single able-bodied men.’13

The Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852 had recommended that ‘at least half of any assistance given to the able-bodied was to be in the form of food, fuel or other necessary articles.’14 However, many unions preferred to give relief to the able-bodied wholly in money. The Poor Law Board objected strongly to this and in 1879 wrote to one union explaining that ‘the Board attach much importance to the principle of giving relief to able-bodied men half in kind, as a long and wide experience has shown that the administering of relief in this form is beneficial, both as tending to diminish the chance of imposition and to secure that a portion of the relief is applied to the wants of the family.’15

The commissioners had found that ‘adequate outdoor relief would work if partly given in kind (bread and potatoes) and in return for work on parish roads.’16 However, they ‘failed to realise that the poor preferred a 9s or 10s wage to relief payments of 3s, food enough to get through the week, and work on the roads.’17

ABLE-BODIED MEN WITH FAMILIES

It was the married man with a large family who was hit hardest when unions enforced the new Poor Law regulations to the letter. Previously, he might have expected to receive outdoor relief from a benevolent relieving officer without too much persuasion. Now, when he applied for relief, he was offered the workhouse for himself and his family, with no other alternative.