24 C O N T E X T 1 0 8 : M A R C H 2 0 0 9 Peter Higginbotham The history of the workhouse The workhouse: a name whose associations can still evoke feelings of dread in those old enough to remember the institution’s forbidding presence in their neighbourhood. What were workhouse buildings really like? How many were there? And are any still standing? The history of the workhouse, and the welfare system of which it formed part, broadly falls into two phases. From around 1600 to 1834 was the era of the Old Poor Law where the parish was the primary body administering poor relief.This could either be as ‘out-relief’ handouts in the form of money, food, clothes or fuel, or (if the parish so decided) by providing a workhouse. Following the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act (the New Poor Law) parishes were grouped into unions, each of which was required to provide a workhouse. Throughout both periods, poor relief, including the operation of workhouses, was entirely funded by local ratepayers. Non-residential workhouses began to appear in the early 1600s. Two notable examples were erected at Reading and Newbury in Berkshire in 1626–8. The Reading establishment, known as the Oracle, is commemorated by a shopping centre of the same name which now stands on the site. At Newbury, the West Berkshire Museum occupies the sole surviving range of the building’s original quadrangle. Although not much celebrated locally, the structure is one of the oldest extant workhouse buildings in the country. During the 1720s, many parishes were persuaded that they could save money by withdrawing out-relief and offering paupers only the workhouse – by now a residential establishment where labour was usually demanded. A workhouse boom ensued with almost 2,000 workhouses operating by 1775. Although parish workhouses were often set up in rented properties, a significant number were purpose-built. There is usually little to distinguish these from ordinary houses of the period. Identifying former parish workhouses, including those only hired for the purpose, can prove difficult. However, several hundred surviving examples are known, with many more still potentially to be discovered. Some towns, including Bristol (in 1696), Hull (1698), Worcester (1703) and Oxford (1771), took a different path, setting up civic incorporations to manage poor relief on a cross-parish basis, often establishing large workhouses. The second half of the 18th century also saw the creation of around 20 rural incorporations, mostly by East Anglian county hundreds such as Carlford and Colneis (1762), East and West Flegg (1775) and Stow (1778), and areas elsewhere such as the Isle of Wight (1770) and Montgomery and Pool (1792). Many of these buildings were purpose built, often with a distinctive U- or H-shaped layout, and housing two or three hundred inmates.Virtually nothing remains of the urban incorporation workhouses, but around half of their rural cousins survive, mostly as housing, with the largely intact Mitford and Launditch establishment at Gressenhall now a museum. Conditions for early workhouse inmates varied. The food was generally plain and limited in quantity, although weak small beer was often produced in the workhouse’s brew-house. Work was usually required from those able to do it, apart from the domestic chores. Larger workhouses included workrooms for tasks such as spinning, weaving and knitting. Some workhouses, however, offered spacious accommodation and a fairly relaxed regime, leading to them acquiring the soubriquet of ‘pauper palaces’. The Blything incorporation workhouse even had a licensed shop for the sale of alcohol, tobacco and tea run by one of the longstanding inmates. Despite the growth of workhouses, the predominant means of relieving the poor was through out-relief. Between 1784 and 1181, the national cost of out-relief soared from around £2 million to almost £8 million. In an effort to reduce their growing poor-rates bill, some parishes adopted a strictly and economically run workhouse with a complete separation of the sexes, a workhouse uniform, plain food, no beer or tobacco, and hard manual labour for its inmates. The success of this approach in the Nottinghamshire parishes of Bingham and Southwell led in 1824 to its adoption in a large new workhouse at nearby Upton for the Left: A typical parish workhouse erected in 1731 at Cudham in Kent, its pedigree provided by a commemorative plaque. Right:The Italianate frontage of Bolton’s 1861 workhouse.The central tower concealed a large water tank.
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