British workhouses - charity or prison?

After the Dissolution (1536-41), several laws were passed in order to alleviate poverty. Basically they were designed to prov­ide work for the poor, shelter for the old and sick, and pun­ishment for vagrants and beggars. Each parish was made responsible for its own poor and dispossessed, leading to the common expression Living on the Parish. Funds for this were collected by taxing those who owned and occupied property, the forerunner of Council Taxes. Ratepayers elected parish overseers who administered Relief, as assistance to the poor became known.

With the arrival of the 1601 Poor Relief Act, measures included plans for the construction of homes for the elderly or sick. The C17th wit­nessed an increase in state involve­ment in poverty, and further Acts were brought in, helping to formal­ise the structure and prac­tice of the work­house. By 1776, a government survey was conduct­ed on work houses: in 1800, their total population was c90,000.

Rev John Becher a pioneer of workhouse and prison reform, and his assoc­iate George Nich­olls, created a system allowing parishes to pool their res­ources; thus they could operate housing for the poor on a local-regional le­v­el. Each work­house was a huge set of conn­ec­t­ed units, built as a residence for the poor. Becher's design was used as model by the Poor Law Commission to inform the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, known as the New Poor Law. 

Southwell Workhouse, 

opened in 1824

Country Images Magazine

Women residents, 1896

Country Images Magazine

Becher was aiming for moral improvement. His philosophy was that work­houses should be a deterrent to an idle or profligate lifestyle; the harsh reality of work­house life was to encourage people to avoid this port of last call IF possible. His theory was that peop­le could find work if they really wanted to, and most indigent peop­le were just lazy. So by repetitive, hard work idle, indigents would be converted to a more upright life­style.

Inmates were divided into categories. Those too old or infirm to work were called Blameless and were treated with some compass­ion. Those who were capable of work, but were unemployed, were called Idle and Profligate Able-Bodied and were expected to work for their keep. Men had to break up rock for road building or pick apart rope, while women did laundry. Everyone wore unif­orms and life was intentionally kept monotonous.

They lived and worked in a strictly segregated environment with no cont­act between the old and infirmed, and the able-bodied. Men, women and children had separate quart­ers, so famil­ies were split up and not allowed to meet. The children rec­eiv­ed ba­s­ic education, and then were made to work. Rules were strict, un­d­er the tough eye of paid Masters or Matrons, and transgressions were harshly punished. 

The workhouse I know best was in Southwell Notts (1824), designed by South­well-Lincoln architect William Adams Nichol­son. The build­ing was the most complete workhouse in ex­istence, its archit­ect­ure influenced by prison design. This rur­al site was des­ig­ned to house 160 inmates, drawn from 62 surrounding parishes.

In 1929 a new Poor Law was intro­duced, and many of the old workhouses were converted into hos­pitals or social housing. The Workhouse provided temporary accom­m­odation for the homeless until 1976, when part of the site was converted into a residential old-age home. The institution continued until the early 1990s, when it was us­ed to provide temporary accommodation for mothers and children.

  

men's dormitory (above)

men eating lunch (below)
historyextra

 In 1997 the Nation­al Trust stepped in to buy Southwell’s Grade II listed building, to broaden its interests and to ensure its con­tin­ued ex­istence. Now a museum, Southwell is shown to school groups and families; the stories of 1840s inmates still prom­p­t reflection on how society tackled poverty before the modern welfare system.

Restoration began with roof repairs in 2000. Many rooms were redecorated to how they would have looked in the C19th; buildings, walls & privies, demolished in the C20th, were rein­st­ated. In 2015 the property was featured in the BBC One ser­ies 24 Hours in the Past, in which celeb­rities experienced life in Victorian Britain. Though from a distance it looked like a large factory, it began to look more prison-like, as the visitor passed through the entrance into the inner courtyards, very segreg­ated and isolated.

Around the inner courtyards were a series of small buildings hous­ing a laundry, drying room, water tank and an infirmary. One of the subsidiary buildings was the bakery, marked as a privy on the orig­inal plans for the site. It was only when the National Trust disc­ov­ered a mysterious key that the hidden bakery was visible. The tiny exercise yards, with a very simple outdoor privy in one corn­er, were overlooked by the warden's cham­b­ers so that the inmates were always watched, like criminals.

The Southwell Workhouse was in operation for 150+ years. Yet today, walking on the paupers' path to Southwell Workhouse, the site still shows how the Victorian poor must have felt as they sought ref­uge. The visitor comes away from The Workhouse appalled at the cond­­it­ions that the poor inmates were forced to endure. But the ques­tion remains: were conditions in the count­ryside much better?

Children at Crumpsall Workhouse Manchester,

c.1897, Flickr

Read Millie Thom for excellent images