# Horrors of the Victorian Workhouse

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 12 Oct 2026, 1 h 12 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75561416/horrors_of_the_victorian_workhouse_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3



## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The workhouse, perhaps the most feared and also emblematic institution
[0:07] Speaker 1: of Victorian Britain. Established under the 19th century poor law system,
[0:14] Speaker 1: these institutions housed the destitute, in conditions that contemporaries likened
[0:20] Speaker 1: to prisons. Generations of Britain grew up hearing the grim
[0:25] Speaker 1: stories of lives in the workhouse, that became so synonymous
[0:30] Speaker 1: with poverty, drudgery and social stigma. Even novelists such as
[0:36] Speaker 1: Charles Dickens seared the image of the workhouse into the
[0:39] Speaker 1: public imagination, with the scenes of the orphaned Oliver Twist
[0:44] Speaker 1: pleading for more porridge. Yet, behind the literary dramatisation is
[0:51] Speaker 1: the very real history, the very real system born of
[0:57] Speaker 1: ideological zeal and economic stress. And that's what we're going
[1:03] Speaker 1: to talk about today. The origins of the Victorian workhouse system,
[1:09] Speaker 1: the daily routines, the hardships of the people who had
[1:12] Speaker 1: to deal with these institutions. And we'll examine the wrenching
[1:17] Speaker 1: separation of families, too, along with the strict work and
[1:22] Speaker 1: discipline imposed But don't worry, we won't miss out on
[1:26] Speaker 1: the gory details. We'll shine a light on the experiences
[1:30] Speaker 1: of the child workforce, the plight of the sick and
[1:34] Speaker 1: the elderly, and eventually, the shifting public perception that eventually
[1:41] Speaker 1: brought much-needed reform. Well, let me first welcome you to
[1:47] Speaker 1: the channel. Introductions out of the way, you certainly know
[1:52] Speaker 1: what you're in for. If you've not yet subscribed, consider
[1:56] Speaker 1: clicking the button, and the like button, and leaving the comment,
[2:00] Speaker 1: you know how it is. And thank you very much
[2:03] Speaker 1: to those supporting on Patreon, YouTube memberships, and those who
[2:07] Speaker 1: checked out the merch store, keeping the video ad-free for
[2:12] Speaker 1: everybody's enjoyment. Now, without further ado, let's get to the
[2:19] Speaker 1: topic at hand, nice and relaxed. The Victorian workhouse system
[2:27] Speaker 1: did not emerge in a vacuum, but rather was the
[2:30] Speaker 1: product of long-standing debates about how to handle the swaths
[2:36] Speaker 1: of poor on the streets of Britain. England had provided
[2:41] Speaker 1: relief to its poor since Tudor times, guided by laws
[2:45] Speaker 1: such as the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601. Traditionally, each
[2:52] Speaker 1: parish dispensed outdoor relief, small cash or food aid given
[2:58] Speaker 1: to the needy in their own homes. By the nineteenth century, however,
[3:03] Speaker 1: mounting social and economic pressures led many in power to
[3:07] Speaker 1: conclude that the old system was completely broken. The population
[3:13] Speaker 1: had boomed, agricultural jobs dwindled with mechanization, straining parish resources.
[3:22] Speaker 1: The cost of supporting the poor was climbing to unsustainable
[3:26] Speaker 1: levels by the 1830s, and officials believed the system bred
[3:31] Speaker 1: dependency and idleness. In 1832, the government appointed a royal commission,
[3:39] Speaker 1: led by figures like Reverend Thomas Malthus, famous for warning
[3:43] Speaker 1: that population growth would outstrip resources, and the utilitarian reformer
[3:49] Speaker 1: Edwin Chadwick, both tasked with investigating the problem. The Commissioner's
[3:55] Speaker 1: influential 1834 report concluded that relief should be made less
[4:02] Speaker 1: attractive than labouring for one's own wages. The recommended solution
[4:09] Speaker 1: was radical. Abolish the outdoor relief and make the only
[4:15] Speaker 1: way to receive public aid entering the workhouse. this approach
[4:22] Speaker 1: was grounded in the principle of less eligibility. In plain terms,
[4:28] Speaker 1: living conditions of any abled-bodied pauper on relief were not
[4:34] Speaker 1: to be as desirable as those of the poorest independent labourer.
[4:38] Speaker 1: If workhouse life was sufficiently hard and unappealing, then only
[4:44] Speaker 1: the truly destitute would submit themselves to it. Poverty theorists
[4:50] Speaker 1: argued that this deterrent would weed out the, quote, undeserving
[4:55] Speaker 1: from the genuinely needy. As one contemporary critic, Charles Dickens himself, summarized,
[5:04] Speaker 1: with bitter irony, society had come to such a monstrous
[5:08] Speaker 1: pass that, quote, the dishonest felon is better provided for
[5:14] Speaker 1: than the honest pauper. to the architects of the new
[5:20] Speaker 1: poor law, the workhouse was not intended as a torture chamber,
[5:26] Speaker 1: but a tool of moral and economic discipline. They insisted
[5:31] Speaker 1: that strict rules and forced work, not outright cruelty, would
[5:36] Speaker 1: make life inside unpleasant for idle vagrants, while still providing
[5:41] Speaker 1: a refuge for those truly helpless. In practice, Walking this
[5:47] Speaker 1: fine line proved pretty much impossible. The Poor Law Amendment
[5:53] Speaker 1: Act of 1834, or the New Poor Law, passed Parliament
[5:59] Speaker 1: and created a nationwide system of poor law unions, each
[6:03] Speaker 1: obliged to maintain a workhouse. By 1839, over 95% of
[6:09] Speaker 1: parishes in England and Wales had organised into some 583
[6:12] Speaker 1: unions for this specific purpose. The era of the Victorian
[6:19] Speaker 1: workhouse had begun in earnest, earning these institutions dark nicknames
[6:25] Speaker 1: like the Bastilles, after the notorious French prison, and critics
[6:31] Speaker 1: who saw them as punitive warehouses for the poor. The
[6:36] Speaker 1: ideological origins of the workhouse thus lie in the intersection
[6:40] Speaker 1: of Enlightenment thought industrial capitalism, and a deep-seated fear of pauperism.
[6:49] Speaker 1: Victorian policymakers, many influenced by Benthamite utilitarianism, believed that they
[6:56] Speaker 1: could engineer social behaviour through a mix of incentives and deterrents.
[7:02] Speaker 1: The workhouse was deliberately designed as a last resort. A
[7:07] Speaker 1: popular quip held that the choices for a jobless man
[7:10] Speaker 1: were stark, find work, resort to crime, or go to
[7:15] Speaker 1: the workhouse and suffer the indignity of relief. Even families
[7:22] Speaker 1: on the brink often sold their last possessions to avoid
[7:26] Speaker 1: entering such foreboding walls. To the architects of the system,
[7:32] Speaker 1: such desperation was proof that the workhouse test was indeed
[7:36] Speaker 1: working as intended. Only the neediest would come, But, as
[7:44] Speaker 1: we shall see, this deliberate harshness came at a tremendous
[7:50] Speaker 1: human cost. I know, right? Surprise, surprise. The noble aim
[7:56] Speaker 1: of instilling industry frequently collapsed into misery and abuse on
[8:01] Speaker 1: the ground. The very features meant to enforce less eligibility— the
[8:07] Speaker 1: Spartan-like diet, uniforms, regimentation, loss of liberty— they all added
[8:13] Speaker 1: together to make the workhouse experience so degrading that it
[8:17] Speaker 1: seared itself into a legacy that no one really expected.
[8:25] Speaker 1: So what was it all like, that daily life behind
[8:28] Speaker 1: the closed doors of the workhouse? In a word, regimented.
[8:34] Speaker 1: A monotonous existence, governed by strict timetables and endless rules.
[8:43] Speaker 1: Upon admission, paupers were stripped of any remaining tokens of individuality.
[8:49] Speaker 1: New arrivals underwent a supervised bath, often a humiliating scrub
[8:54] Speaker 1: in front of staff to combat dirt and lice. They
[8:58] Speaker 1: surrendered their clothing and belongings, which were disinfected and locked away,
[9:04] Speaker 1: only to be returned upon release. In exchange, the workhouse
[9:08] Speaker 1: issued coarse uniforms. men in rough woolen trousers and jackets,
[9:14] Speaker 1: women in shapeless dresses of cheap fabric, with aprons and
[9:19] Speaker 1: frayed bonnets. These outfits were practical, warm and hard-wearing, but
[9:26] Speaker 1: they were also symbolic, immediately marking the wearers as inmates
[9:32] Speaker 1: and enforcing a visual conformity. Once processed into the workhouse,
[9:40] Speaker 1: Inmates found themselves living according to a rigid daily schedule
[9:44] Speaker 1: set by the poor law commissioners in 1835. A difficult
[9:48] Speaker 1: day began early. In the summer months, the rising bell
[9:52] Speaker 1: clanged at 6 a.m., and in winter, 7 a.m., rousing men, women,
[9:58] Speaker 1: and children alike from communal dormitories. After a meagre breakfast,
[10:05] Speaker 1: often a bowl of porridge or bread with a little butter,
[10:09] Speaker 1: eaten in silence, the workhouse master would assign the day's labour.
[10:14] Speaker 1: Work started at 7 in the summer, 8 in the winter.
[10:18] Speaker 1: and continued for five hours until a short midday dinner break.
[10:23] Speaker 1: After the dinner hour, toil resumed for another five or
[10:27] Speaker 1: six hours. The toll of a bell again signalled the
[10:30] Speaker 1: day's end around six p.m. The inmates then received a
[10:34] Speaker 1: scant supper at about six or seven p.m., followed by
[10:38] Speaker 1: a brief period allotted for recreation, though in many workhouses
[10:44] Speaker 1: this simply meant an hour of enforced idleness. perhaps a
[10:49] Speaker 1: prayer service, or sitting in the yard if weather permitted.
[10:54] Speaker 1: By 8pm, it was lights out, and back to the
[10:58] Speaker 1: dormitories under watchful eyes. Day after day, the routine repeated
[11:04] Speaker 1: with military precision. One former inmate bitterly described it as
[11:09] Speaker 1: a life where, quote, the bell regulated everything. And yet, indeed,
[11:17] Speaker 1: The relentless schedule was intended to instill discipline and break
[11:22] Speaker 1: any habit of sloth. Material conditions in sight were deliberately austere.
[11:30] Speaker 1: Housing was basic and often overcrowded. Larger workhouses, especially in cities,
[11:36] Speaker 1: were built to hold hundreds of paupers in cavernous wards.
[11:41] Speaker 1: Rows of narrow beds or hammocks lined the sleeping rooms,
[11:46] Speaker 1: sometimes so tightly but there was barely space to walk
[11:49] Speaker 1: between them. Privacy was non-existent. Dormitories, dining halls and even
[11:57] Speaker 1: bathrooms were communal. In some notorious cases, sanitary facilities were
[12:03] Speaker 1: shockingly inadequate. One 1866 investigation found a London workhouse where
[12:10] Speaker 1: over 550 inmates had to share 332 beds. and doorless
[12:17] Speaker 1: latrines opened directly into the wards, with no washing water.
[12:25] Speaker 1: Such conditions invited the spread of disease. Epidemics of smallpox, measles,
[12:30] Speaker 1: and cholera periodically swept through the crowded workhouses, where ventilation
[12:36] Speaker 1: was poor and nutrition meagre. Most workhouses were cold and
[12:43] Speaker 1: drafty in winter, sweltering in summer, Though some had infirmaries
[12:48] Speaker 1: or sick wards, these were often just as crammed and
[12:51] Speaker 1: bleak as the rest of the institution. Food in the workhouse,
[12:56] Speaker 1: while intentionally plain, was not designed to starve people, at
[13:00] Speaker 1: least not on paper. The poor law authorities mandated sufficient
[13:05] Speaker 1: calories to keep inmates alive and working, but without any frills.
[13:12] Speaker 1: A common diet might include bread, porridge, broth, potatoes, and
[13:17] Speaker 1: the occasional bit of meat or cheese. But you'd have
[13:20] Speaker 1: to be pretty lucky to get that. One London workhouse's
[13:24] Speaker 1: weekly menu in the 1840s promised pea soup, boiled beef,
[13:29] Speaker 1: and suet pudding with bread. Hardly appetising, but it's better
[13:35] Speaker 1: than nothing. Now, gruel is the staple. A thin oat porridge,
[13:43] Speaker 1: achieving infamy through Dickens's fiction. That was not the sole affair.
[13:48] Speaker 1: It wasn't like you had that every day. In reality,
[13:52] Speaker 1: some workhouses even served modest variations, like Irish stew or puddings,
[13:59] Speaker 1: and tea or small beer was provided, since clean water
[14:03] Speaker 1: was scarce. Still, hunger was a frequent companion. Portions were
[14:09] Speaker 1: tightly controlled. and any extra treats, as in, I don't
[14:14] Speaker 1: mean any sweets or anything, I mean a pinch of salt,
[14:17] Speaker 1: or perhaps a spoon of sugar, or even a second helping,
[14:22] Speaker 1: but there were luxuries strictly forbidden by regulation. The oft-quoted
[14:30] Speaker 1: rule that no pauper shall receive second helpings was literally true.
[14:37] Speaker 1: Oliver Twist's famous request for more was scripted from life.
[14:41] Speaker 1: Inmates caught trading or supplementing their rations could be punished.
[14:47] Speaker 1: Beyond this spartan diet and spic-and-span uniforms, the daily routine
[14:54] Speaker 1: enforced a kind of mental strain. Idleness was abhorred, except
[15:00] Speaker 1: for the short time after supper. Inmates were either working, eating,
[15:05] Speaker 1: or sleeping. Conversation was curtailed or banned during work and meals.
[15:12] Speaker 1: Many workhouses had a rule of silence to prevent fraternization
[15:17] Speaker 1: or complaints. The atmosphere, as a result, tended to be
[15:21] Speaker 1: eerily quiet and oppressive, broken mainly by the bark of
[15:25] Speaker 1: an overseer or the clatter of work. One could imagine
[15:29] Speaker 1: the psychological impact of the monotony. Bored to death, that's
[15:35] Speaker 1: for sure. For someone who had led an independent life,
[15:39] Speaker 1: However poor, the transition to the workhouse regime, when nothing
[15:44] Speaker 1: was one's own, where every hour was scheduled by authority,
[15:49] Speaker 1: was a deep humiliation. Contemporary accounts describe newcomers, especially proud
[15:56] Speaker 1: artisans fallen on hard times, breaking down in tears at
[16:01] Speaker 1: their first sight of the barren dormitory or course fair.
[16:06] Speaker 1: The workhouse was deliberately institutional in feel, akin to a
[16:11] Speaker 1: cross between a factory, a barracks, and a jail. It
[16:16] Speaker 1: aimed to grind down individual will, either to reform the
[16:20] Speaker 1: pauper into a productive citizen, or simply to enforce compliance.
[16:26] Speaker 1: And as we shall see next, one of the cruelest
[16:30] Speaker 1: aspects of this system was the rigid separation of inmates
[16:34] Speaker 1: by category. a policy that shattered the family bonds of
[16:40] Speaker 1: those poor souls who entered. From the moment of entry, husbands, wives,
[16:48] Speaker 1: and children were segregated into different wards, and they were
[16:52] Speaker 1: often forbidden from regularly seeing one another. The new poor
[16:58] Speaker 1: law authorities believed this was necessary to maintain order and
[17:03] Speaker 1: uphold the deterrent principle. If life in the workhouse was
[17:07] Speaker 1: too homely, or allowed families to enter and enjoy time together,
[17:13] Speaker 1: it might actually cease to be feared. Thus, upon admission,
[17:17] Speaker 1: each family member was classified and sent to the appropriate wing,
[17:23] Speaker 1: regardless of any emotional outcry. So typically, inmates were divided
[17:30] Speaker 1: into groups such as first being able-bodied men, able-bodied women, children,
[17:37] Speaker 1: infants and toddlers, who by regulation, by the way, could
[17:41] Speaker 1: remain with their mothers up to about the age of
[17:44] Speaker 1: seven in many unions, and then aged or infirm men,
[17:50] Speaker 1: and Asian infirm women in their own sections. This classification
[17:56] Speaker 1: meant that a husband would live in a different block
[17:58] Speaker 1: from his wife, older children would sleep and work apart
[18:02] Speaker 1: from their parents, and even from their opposite-sex siblings. Only
[18:07] Speaker 1: very young children were allowed to stay near their mothers,
[18:11] Speaker 1: and even that had limits. For example, a mother with
[18:15] Speaker 1: a baby could keep the infant with her, but her
[18:19] Speaker 1: eight-year-old boy would be housed in the boy's ward, and
[18:23] Speaker 1: might only see his mother briefly at regulated times, might
[18:28] Speaker 1: only be an hour a day. Married couples over the
[18:32] Speaker 1: age of sixty might sometimes petition to share a room,
[18:36] Speaker 1: but policy generally forbade even elderly husbands and wives from
[18:41] Speaker 1: living together. The heartbreak this caused was widely noted. One
[18:48] Speaker 1: 1840s report observed that the chief objection the poor had
[18:52] Speaker 1: to workhouses was precisely this rigid sundering of family ties.
[18:59] Speaker 1: You see, to paupers, The forced break-ups of families was
[19:04] Speaker 1: a torment that made many exclaim that they would rather
[19:08] Speaker 1: starve outside than to enter as a family torn apart.
[19:15] Speaker 1: The human toll of such separations is illustrated in countless
[19:18] Speaker 1: Victorian testimonies. There were mothers who could hardly recognize their
[19:24] Speaker 1: children after months apart. Toddlers crying for absent fathers they
[19:29] Speaker 1: only saw through a gate. and old couples literally dying
[19:34] Speaker 1: of grief from loneliness. George R. Sims' 1877 ballad called
[19:42] Speaker 1: Christmas Day in the Workhouse became famous for dramatising an
[19:46] Speaker 1: old widower's fury that he was kept from his ailing
[19:50] Speaker 1: wife until she passed away. He laments her prayer for
[19:56] Speaker 1: a human hand to hold in her last hour was denied,
[20:02] Speaker 1: cursing the system that starved both body and soul. This
[20:07] Speaker 1: kind of literary depiction, while melodramatic, resonated with people because
[20:13] Speaker 1: it echoed a reality. In one recorded case, an elderly
[20:18] Speaker 1: workhouse inmate did indeed slip past the rules to sit
[20:22] Speaker 1: at his dying wife's bedside, only to be discovered and
[20:26] Speaker 1: punished for the infraction. The strict segregation was not merely
[20:31] Speaker 1: bureaucratic cruelty. It reflected the Victorian moral judgments. Authorities argue
[20:39] Speaker 1: that separating the sexes prevented immorality. No illicit relationships could
[20:45] Speaker 1: form if men and women never mingled. And that had
[20:50] Speaker 1: also maintained discipline by organizing inmates by their capabilities. Yet
[20:56] Speaker 1: critics countered that such harsh separation penalized the poor far
[21:01] Speaker 1: beyond what any crime would warrant. Even convicted prisoners, they noted,
[21:07] Speaker 1: or sometimes allowed visitors or correspondence, whereas pauper parents and
[21:12] Speaker 1: children endured what one lawmaker called a, quote, daily living
[21:18] Speaker 1: death of family ties. Over time, public pressure did force
[21:24] Speaker 1: minor relaxations. Some workhouses began to permit limited family visits
[21:31] Speaker 1: on Sundays, for instance, or set up supervised meeting-yards. where
[21:36] Speaker 1: relatives could speak across a fence. But these concessions were exceptions,
[21:43] Speaker 1: not the rule. The norm in the Victorian workhouse was
[21:47] Speaker 1: that family members lived parallel lives under the same roof,
[21:52] Speaker 1: each isolated in their own dormitory or workshop. A mother
[21:56] Speaker 1: might catch a glimpse of her son marching with the
[21:59] Speaker 1: boys to chapel. A husband might hear his wife's voice
[22:03] Speaker 1: singing a hymn with the women. yet they could not
[22:07] Speaker 1: sit together. This enforced disconnection was one of the greatest
[22:12] Speaker 1: psychological cruelties of the system, a constant reminder that poverty
[22:18] Speaker 1: had stripped people not only of comforts, but of their
[22:21] Speaker 1: dignity as husbands, wives and parents. It is little wonder
[22:25] Speaker 1: that so many destitute individuals held off entering until they
[22:29] Speaker 1: absolutely had no choice, dreading not just the hard beds
[22:33] Speaker 1: and thin soups, but this cruel parting above all. The
[22:43] Speaker 1: workhouses were often called the pauper's prison, and nowhere was
[22:48] Speaker 1: this more evident than in the regime and labour and
[22:51] Speaker 1: discipline imposed on its inmates. While inside, abled-bodied paupers were
[22:58] Speaker 1: expected to work for their keep, performing menial and often
[23:04] Speaker 1: back-breaking tasks. The intention was twofold, to make the workhouse
[23:09] Speaker 1: self-sustaining as far as possible, and also to drill into
[23:13] Speaker 1: paupers the habits of hard work, or simply wear them
[23:18] Speaker 1: down so they might leave and seek employment outside. In practice,
[23:24] Speaker 1: much of the workhouse labour was deliberately unproductive make-work, hard
[23:30] Speaker 1: toil with little economic value, chosen to be as tedious
[23:34] Speaker 1: or physically exhausting as possible. so that no one would
[23:37] Speaker 1: seek the workhouse as a comfortable option. Typical jobs for
[23:43] Speaker 1: male inmates included breaking stones into gravel for roads, chopping
[23:49] Speaker 1: wood for firewood, and the notorious task of bone crushing.
[23:56] Speaker 1: In the boneyard, men pounded old bones from carcasses of
[24:00] Speaker 1: horses or cows with heavy iron brammers to produce bone
[24:04] Speaker 1: meal fertiliser. This job became a scandalous symbol of workhouse
[24:09] Speaker 1: life after reports emerged in 1845 that starving men at
[24:14] Speaker 1: the Andover workhouse were fighting over the bones, gnawing at
[24:19] Speaker 1: the dry marrow and gristle for just a little bit
[24:22] Speaker 1: of extra nourishment. An official inquiry into the Andover scandal
[24:28] Speaker 1: confirmed that half-starved inmates were indeed routinely scrabbled in heaps
[24:33] Speaker 1: of rotting bones. sucking out any remnants of fat to
[24:38] Speaker 1: save off hunger. Of course, the public was horrified that
[24:44] Speaker 1: conditions in a state institution had become so appalling that
[24:50] Speaker 1: men were driven to literally eat garbage. The end of
[24:55] Speaker 1: a case exposed not only the brutal work, but the
[24:58] Speaker 1: corruption and cruel management, how they would always turn the
[25:03] Speaker 1: screw of suffering even tighter Even a workhouse master skimmed
[25:09] Speaker 1: food rations for profit. Another ubiquitous drudgery was picking oakum,
[25:17] Speaker 1: a task given to men, women, and older children alike.
[25:21] Speaker 1: Oakum picking meant unravelling old tarry ropes from ships to
[25:24] Speaker 1: tease out the fires, fibers rather, which could be used
[25:29] Speaker 1: for corking seams in wooden ships. It was slow. and
[25:35] Speaker 1: finger-blistering work. Each inmate would be given a quota of
[25:40] Speaker 1: oakum to pick daily. Failing to meet the quota might
[25:45] Speaker 1: result in a punishment or a delayed, meagre meal. The
[25:50] Speaker 1: oakum stiff with tar often left the worker's hands bleeding
[25:54] Speaker 1: or covered in tiny cuts. It's mentioned in accounts of
[25:59] Speaker 1: workhouse life. and in Oliver Twist, by the way, where
[26:03] Speaker 1: the boys picked oakum when not eating gruel, became shorthand
[26:07] Speaker 1: for monotonous painful toil. Women's labour in the workhouse was
[26:13] Speaker 1: typically oriented toward domestic duties and the upkeep of the establishment.
[26:18] Speaker 1: Female inmates did the laundry, scrubbing the workhouse linens and
[26:22] Speaker 1: clothes by hand. They worked in the kitchen, preparing huge
[26:27] Speaker 1: vats of broth or porridge. They scrubbed floors. cleaned the dormitories,
[26:33] Speaker 1: and mended clothing and linens. In some workhouses, they also
[26:39] Speaker 1: did sewing or spinning to make cheap textiles that could
[26:42] Speaker 1: be sold, or they helped tend vegetable gardens and livestock.
[26:48] Speaker 1: Pigs and chickens were raised in a few workhouses to
[26:52] Speaker 1: supplement the diet a little. Elderly women often knitted socks
[26:57] Speaker 1: or garments for the inmates. All of this labour was
[27:01] Speaker 1: you must remember, was completely unpaid. It was simply the
[27:05] Speaker 1: price of receiving relief. The workhouse master or matron oversaw
[27:11] Speaker 1: the assignments and sometimes hired taskmasters to supervise the gangs
[27:16] Speaker 1: of workers. Time for rest or personal activity was minimal.
[27:21] Speaker 1: In theory, Sunday was a day of rest with the
[27:25] Speaker 1: obligatory chapel services. But even that day could be filled
[27:29] Speaker 1: with chores. like mending or extra washing, since there was
[27:34] Speaker 1: always work to keep the huge institution running. Discipline in
[27:40] Speaker 1: the workhouse was maintained by a combination of rigid rules,
[27:44] Speaker 1: constant supervision, and swift punishment for infractions. The staff kept
[27:50] Speaker 1: watch to ensure inmates stayed on task and followed orders,
[27:54] Speaker 1: talking back to a supervisor, disobeying orders, being slow at work,
[28:00] Speaker 1: or violating the many rules, such as the no-smoking rule,
[28:05] Speaker 1: or trying to smuggle in food, it could all lead
[28:09] Speaker 1: to penalties. Punishments, of course, varied in severity. For minor offences,
[28:15] Speaker 1: an inmate might be reprimanded or lose their next meal,
[28:19] Speaker 1: being put on just bread and water for a day,
[28:21] Speaker 1: for example. More serious rule-breakers could be confined in a
[28:26] Speaker 1: small room, essentially solitary confinement. that could last for several
[28:32] Speaker 1: hours up to several days. Nearly every workhouse had a
[28:38] Speaker 1: couple of refractory cells for isolating and disciplining unruly paupers.
[28:45] Speaker 1: The worst cases, such as violence against staff or persistent disobedience,
[28:50] Speaker 1: could result in expulsion from the workhouse, which, for many,
[28:56] Speaker 1: was effectively a death sentence on the streets, or handing
[29:00] Speaker 1: the person over to civil authorities for imprisonment. The line
[29:06] Speaker 1: between a workhouse and a jail could of course be blurry. Untellingly,
[29:11] Speaker 1: dozens of Andover workhouse inmates in the 1840s committed petty
[29:16] Speaker 1: crimes just to get transferred to prison, where they hoped
[29:20] Speaker 1: to find better food and kinder treatment. The strict regime
[29:27] Speaker 1: was sometimes eased for those considered deserving or incapable, The elderly,
[29:33] Speaker 1: the sick, and young children were usually exempted from hard labour.
[29:39] Speaker 1: But able-bodied men and women were expected to labour diligently.
[29:45] Speaker 1: The guiding ethos was summed up by one Board of
[29:47] Speaker 1: Guardians rule. No pauper shall be idle. This could reach, frankly,
[29:54] Speaker 1: absurd extents. Make work tasks, perform for hours, and and
[30:00] Speaker 1: then undone, just to keep hands busy. One example often
[30:06] Speaker 1: cited is that of a workhouse where men spent days
[30:09] Speaker 1: breaking rocks into small stones, and then another gang was
[30:13] Speaker 1: made to carry the piles of stones to a different yard,
[30:16] Speaker 1: where yet another group might be tasked with piling them
[30:20] Speaker 1: back up again. Such punitive busywork broke spirits more than
[30:27] Speaker 1: it produced any useful output. Abuse of power by workhouse
[30:32] Speaker 1: staff was a recurrent problem. Masters and matrons wielded immense
[30:36] Speaker 1: authority over the powerless. Some were compassionate, running their workhouses
[30:42] Speaker 1: firmly but humanely. Others were not. Rather petty tyrants, who
[30:50] Speaker 1: delighted in enforcing arbitrary cruelties. Scandals periodically erupted. when investigations
[30:57] Speaker 1: revealed that a workhouse governor was embezzling funds or mistreating inmates,
[31:03] Speaker 1: beating children or selling off food supplies, or even exploiting
[31:08] Speaker 1: female inmates. One infamous case in the 1870s was a
[31:14] Speaker 1: workhouse master who was found to be fathering children with
[31:18] Speaker 1: multiple women under his care. These sensational cases fuelled the
[31:24] Speaker 1: Victorian press. an intensified cause for reform. But they also
[31:29] Speaker 1: highlight how the power imbalance left inmates vulnerable. One workhouse
[31:34] Speaker 1: medical officer, Dr. Joseph Rogers, later testified that complaining about
[31:40] Speaker 1: conditions was futile. He said, if the paupers spoke up,
[31:45] Speaker 1: they risked imprisonment or being labelled rebellious. Rogers became a whistleblower.
[31:52] Speaker 1: to expose how underfeeding and poor medical care were effectively
[31:57] Speaker 1: killing inmates, all under the guise of discipline. Well, despite
[32:05] Speaker 1: the grim picture, it's worth noting that not every workhouse
[32:08] Speaker 1: was a chamber of horror. Conditions and strictness varied by region,
[32:14] Speaker 1: and over time. Some northern industrial towns had workhouse guardians
[32:19] Speaker 1: who were relatively lenient, occasionally allowing small comforts or tolerating
[32:25] Speaker 1: minor infractions. And by the late 19th century, as we
[32:29] Speaker 1: will discuss, public scrutiny did improve standards somewhat. But in
[32:36] Speaker 1: the popular mind, and in the testimony of many who
[32:39] Speaker 1: experienced it, the Victorian workhouse remained a place of grinding
[32:44] Speaker 1: work and harsh discipline, a place of last dread, where
[32:50] Speaker 1: one toiled not to earn a living, but just the
[32:53] Speaker 1: right to stay alive, at least until the following morning.
[33:01] Speaker 1: Of course, the most unsettling aspect is probably going to
[33:05] Speaker 1: be the presence of children. On any given day in
[33:09] Speaker 1: the mid-19th century, thousands of boys and girls called the
[33:13] Speaker 1: workhouses home. Some entered at birth, the infants of unwed
[33:20] Speaker 1: mothers or pauper parents. and others arrived with their destitute
[33:24] Speaker 1: families during economic slumps. While the architects of the poor
[33:29] Speaker 1: law considered able-bodied adults to blame for their plight, they
[33:33] Speaker 1: generally viewed children as blameless victims of circumstance. Now, in theory,
[33:38] Speaker 1: workhouse children would be treated less harshly than adults and
[33:42] Speaker 1: given opportunities for education and training. But in practice, and
[33:48] Speaker 1: I'm sure you already know, that their lives... could be
[33:52] Speaker 1: just as bleak and quite dangerous. Although, we'll get to
[33:58] Speaker 1: the reformers making progress gradually. Young children, typically under the
[34:04] Speaker 1: age of seven, were allowed to stay with their mothers
[34:06] Speaker 1: in the women's section. This policy recognised the need for
[34:10] Speaker 1: maternal care in early childhood. However, once past that age,
[34:16] Speaker 1: boys and girls were separated from their parents. That's if
[34:20] Speaker 1: they had them. and housed in children's dormitories supervised by
[34:24] Speaker 1: nurses or teachers. The daily routine for all the children
[34:29] Speaker 1: mirrored that of adults in terms of early rising meals
[34:32] Speaker 1: and bedtime, but included hours of basic schooling. Education in
[34:38] Speaker 1: the workhouse, of course, varied widely. Some large urban workhouses
[34:43] Speaker 1: had a dedicated schoolroom, and hired a schoolmaster or mistress
[34:47] Speaker 1: to teach reading, writing, religious instruction, arithmetic, etc. In rural workhouses,
[34:55] Speaker 1: schooling might be rudimentary, or just non-existent, consisting of a
[35:00] Speaker 1: few lessons from the Bible, taught by the master or chaplain,
[35:04] Speaker 1: and that's all good and well, but it doesn't look
[35:07] Speaker 1: very promising on a resume once you get out of
[35:10] Speaker 1: the workhouse, doesn't it? The quality of instruction, too, was
[35:14] Speaker 1: often quite low. The priority of penny-pinching boards of guardians
[35:20] Speaker 1: was not enlightening education. Still, the idea was to prevent
[35:25] Speaker 1: pauper children from becoming pauper adults by instilling literacy in
[35:30] Speaker 1: some work habits. And so, when children reached a certain
[35:37] Speaker 1: age— usually around nine or ten in the early decades
[35:41] Speaker 1: and later raised to early teens, they were often put
[35:45] Speaker 1: out of the workhouse through apprenticeships. Since the 17th century,
[35:51] Speaker 1: it had been customary to apprentice poor children to tradesmen
[35:54] Speaker 1: or households, ostensibly to learn a trade in exchange for
[35:58] Speaker 1: room or board. The new poor law continued this practice
[36:02] Speaker 1: as a means to empty the workhouse of healthy children
[36:05] Speaker 1: and give them a better start in life. Unfortunately, many
[36:11] Speaker 1: of these apprentices were little better than child slaves. Greedy
[36:16] Speaker 1: employers in need of cheap labour would take a workhouse
[36:20] Speaker 1: child with a small payment, a bounty paid by the
[36:24] Speaker 1: parish for taking the child off their hands. There were
[36:27] Speaker 1: harrowing cases too. A government report in 1842 found that
[36:32] Speaker 1: the Dewsbury Poor Law Union had apprenticed boys as young
[36:36] Speaker 1: as five to work in a dam coal mine. Very Victorian,
[36:44] Speaker 1: I suppose. Well, one five-year-old, Thomas Townend, was sent down
[36:51] Speaker 1: into a mine as an apprentice hewer, essentially child labourer.
[36:57] Speaker 1: and had to be returned after a few weeks because
[36:59] Speaker 1: he was clearly too young. Scandals like this gradually became
[37:04] Speaker 1: well-known and spurred changes. By the 1840s and 50s, public
[37:08] Speaker 1: concern over child paupers being exploited or abused led to
[37:12] Speaker 1: greater oversight of apprenticeships and the development of alternatives, such
[37:18] Speaker 1: as keeping children longer in school or sending them to
[37:21] Speaker 1: special residential institutions. One significant reformer was James K. Shuttleworth,
[37:30] Speaker 1: an assistant poor law commissioner who advocated in the late
[37:35] Speaker 1: 1830s for pauper children to receive industrial training and moral instruction.
[37:42] Speaker 1: He suggested separating children from the contaminating influence of the
[37:47] Speaker 1: adult paupers by creating a large regional school system exclusively
[37:53] Speaker 1: for workhouse youngsters. This led to the establishment of several
[37:59] Speaker 1: large district schools, sometimes housing hundreds of children, far away
[38:05] Speaker 1: from the city centres. For example, the Norwood School in
[38:10] Speaker 1: South London was set up to house pauper children in
[38:14] Speaker 1: less prison-like environment. Charles Dickens, ever critical of workhouse abuses,
[38:21] Speaker 1: visited the Norwood School in 1850, and to everyone's surprise,
[38:26] Speaker 1: he actually said that it wasn't too bad, noting that
[38:31] Speaker 1: its young inmates might leave almost with the certainty of
[38:35] Speaker 1: becoming good and prosperous citizens, due to the decent education
[38:40] Speaker 1: and care provided. Such success stories were not universal, however.
[38:48] Speaker 1: Critiques later charged that the large district schools were impersonal,
[38:53] Speaker 1: and could become breeding grounds for disease due to the
[38:56] Speaker 1: continued congregation of poor children in one place. Moreover, not
[39:01] Speaker 1: every union had access to a separate school, and many
[39:06] Speaker 1: workhouse children still grew up within the grim institution itself.
[39:12] Speaker 1: Inside the workhouse, children's experiences ran the gamut. Infants might
[39:17] Speaker 1: be relatively shielded in nursery wards, and there were some
[39:22] Speaker 1: kind-hearted matrons who took special care of orphans. Older children
[39:28] Speaker 1: often helped the women with the chores. Girls might assist
[39:31] Speaker 1: in the kitchen or laundry, and boys in the workshops
[39:34] Speaker 1: or garden. And they too wore uniforms, sometimes shortened versions
[39:40] Speaker 1: of the adult garb, and ate the same meals, with
[39:45] Speaker 1: extra milk allowance for the youngest children. Discipline for children
[39:49] Speaker 1: could be strict. They were not spared punishment if they misbehaved.
[39:54] Speaker 1: There are records of teenage boys being locked in solitary
[39:57] Speaker 1: confinement for attempting to run away, or girls being whipped
[40:02] Speaker 1: with a birch rod for repeated disobedience. Though corporal punishment
[40:07] Speaker 1: was officially discouraged. But they can't be watching them all
[40:12] Speaker 1: the time, can't they? But what about just Kids being kids,
[40:20] Speaker 1: playing around, or any kind of affection. Well, in the
[40:24] Speaker 1: stern moral climate of the workhouse, toys and playtime were scarce.
[40:30] Speaker 1: Some workhouses allowed children a little play in the yard
[40:33] Speaker 1: after lessons, and perhaps a doll or homemade toy might circulate,
[40:38] Speaker 1: but generally it was just a drab and joyless environment.
[40:44] Speaker 1: Siblings could sometimes find comfort in each other if they
[40:47] Speaker 1: were housed in the same ward, sisters or brothers together,
[40:52] Speaker 1: but opposite-sex siblings, even young ones, had limited contact. Many
[40:57] Speaker 1: pauper children yearned for their families they'd been separated from,
[41:00] Speaker 1: or if orphaned, for any loving attention at all. The
[41:07] Speaker 1: workhouse staff were often too overwhelmed to provide much beyond
[41:12] Speaker 1: basic care. After all, this was not the time and
[41:16] Speaker 1: the place for that. But despite this hardship, it's important
[41:21] Speaker 1: to note that some abandoned or orphaned children, the workhouse
[41:25] Speaker 1: did offer shelter, food, and a chance at life that
[41:29] Speaker 1: they might not have had on the streets. Victorian Britain
[41:33] Speaker 1: had a few alternatives for parentless poor children. The workhouse
[41:39] Speaker 1: or the street gang were the only real options. Reformers
[41:44] Speaker 1: like Dr. Thomas Bernardo, who started founding orphanages in the 1860s,
[41:50] Speaker 1: and others gradually provided more humane refuges outside the poor
[41:55] Speaker 1: law system. In the late Victorian period, scattered homes and
[42:01] Speaker 1: charity institutions started to take some children out of the workhouses.
[42:07] Speaker 1: But throughout the 1800s, Tens of thousands of children spent
[42:11] Speaker 1: at least a part of their childhood in these stark institutions.
[42:16] Speaker 1: Their memories, when later recounted, often included a mix of
[42:21] Speaker 1: gratitude for survival and bitter recollections of the strict and
[42:26] Speaker 1: cold treatment. One former workhouse boy, interviewed as an old
[42:31] Speaker 1: man in 1910, recalled how Christmas in the workhouse was
[42:35] Speaker 1: both a highlight and a torment. They got a rare
[42:39] Speaker 1: treat of meat and something sweet, and even a small gift.
[42:46] Speaker 1: But it reminded him painfully of the loving family Christmas
[42:51] Speaker 1: that he had never had. Victorian society came to view
[42:56] Speaker 1: the presence of innocent children behind workhouse walls as a
[43:00] Speaker 1: barometer of the system's inhumanity. And that sparked a few questions, like,
[43:09] Speaker 1: if our social order demands that orphans live like prisoners, well,
[43:14] Speaker 1: perhaps the social order needs to change. Workhouses were not
[43:23] Speaker 1: just shelters for the unemployed, however. They also became, by necessity,
[43:29] Speaker 1: the catch-all refuges for the sick, disabled, and elderly poor.
[43:37] Speaker 1: they posed a fundamental dilemma. An institution designed as a
[43:41] Speaker 1: deterrent for the able-bodied was ill-suited to care for those
[43:45] Speaker 1: who genuinely could not work. Yet, across Victorian Britain, many
[43:52] Speaker 1: people who were chronically ill or just too old to
[43:55] Speaker 1: earn a wage ended up in workhouses because there was
[43:58] Speaker 1: simply nowhere else for them to go. So, let's look
[44:04] Speaker 1: at the reality of the workhouses, infirmaries and the plight
[44:09] Speaker 1: of those whose final years or days were spent under
[44:14] Speaker 1: the workhouse roof. Not a good way to go, that's
[44:18] Speaker 1: for sure. From the outset, the new Poor Law Commissioners
[44:22] Speaker 1: acknowledged that the workhouse would need to serve as a
[44:26] Speaker 1: hospital of last resort. Most workhouses had designated sick wards
[44:32] Speaker 1: or infirmary rooms. In some rural workhouses, this might be
[44:36] Speaker 1: just a corner of the building where a few beds
[44:39] Speaker 1: were set aside for the ill. In large urban workhouses,
[44:44] Speaker 1: separate infirmary buildings were eventually added. However, in the early decades,
[44:50] Speaker 1: these infirmaries were dreadfully inadequate. Medical staffing was minimal. Typically,
[44:57] Speaker 1: a part-time visiting doctor was contracted to drop in a
[45:00] Speaker 1: few times a week. and maybe a couple of ill-trained nurses,
[45:05] Speaker 1: who were often just female inmates assigned to play the
[45:09] Speaker 1: role of a nurse. Cost-cutting by boards of guardians meant
[45:15] Speaker 1: medical supplies were scant and conditions were unsanitary. One scandalous
[45:20] Speaker 1: policy deducted the cost of any medicine given to a
[45:23] Speaker 1: pauper from the doctor's salary, encouraging some workhouse doctors to
[45:28] Speaker 1: prescribe nothing more than a placebo or a dose of
[45:32] Speaker 1: soothing syrup. Cases emerged of sick paupers receiving no treatment
[45:39] Speaker 1: at all. For instance, cancer patients left to writhe in
[45:43] Speaker 1: agony with only, quote, coloured water as medicine, because providing
[45:50] Speaker 1: laudanum would eat into the doctor's meagre pay. Disease was
[45:56] Speaker 1: a constant threat. Tuberculosis, fevers, smallpox and other infectious diseases
[46:03] Speaker 1: have thrived in the close quarters of the workhouse. In
[46:07] Speaker 1: times of epidemic, workhouses could become death traps. During the
[46:13] Speaker 1: cholera outbreaks of the mid-19th century, some workhouses saw dozens
[46:17] Speaker 1: of inmates die within weeks. The infirmary facilities and isolation
[46:23] Speaker 1: practices were just not sufficient to contain such outbreaks. Additionally,
[46:29] Speaker 1: many who entered the workhouse already in poor health found
[46:33] Speaker 1: that things only got worse by the poor diet and stress.
[46:38] Speaker 1: For the elderly, the workhouse was particularly perilous. These people
[46:44] Speaker 1: in their 60s, 70s or 80s, they might have already
[46:48] Speaker 1: spent a lifetime labouring, only to have no savings or
[46:53] Speaker 1: family to support them at the end. and they came
[46:56] Speaker 1: to the workhouse as that last refuge. Technically excused from
[47:01] Speaker 1: hard labour, the aged paupers still suffered from the environment, cold, dormitories,
[47:09] Speaker 1: mediocre food, and often neglect if they were bedridden. A
[47:15] Speaker 1: report in 1851 noted that a majority of workhouse inmates
[47:20] Speaker 1: over the age of 60 were perishing slowly from chronic diseases,
[47:26] Speaker 1: and malnourishment, effectively just waiting for death. By the 1880s,
[47:34] Speaker 1: those over 65 had become a significant fraction of the
[47:37] Speaker 1: workhouse population, reflecting the reality that the workhouse had evolved
[47:42] Speaker 1: into the default old-age home for the penniless. This in
[47:47] Speaker 1: turn fueled a growing movement for state old-age pensions, eventually
[47:53] Speaker 1: achieved actually in 1908. keeping the elderly out of such
[47:58] Speaker 1: a fate. The most significant push for reform in workhouse
[48:03] Speaker 1: medical care came from both insiders and the press in
[48:07] Speaker 1: the 1860s. Dr. Joseph Rogers, who we met earlier, was
[48:13] Speaker 1: a workhouse physician, and he was appalled by what he witnessed.
[48:18] Speaker 1: He and others formed the Association for the Improvement of
[48:23] Speaker 1: Workhouse Infirmaries in 1866. Around the same time, the prestigious
[48:29] Speaker 1: medical journal The Lancet launched an extraordinary investigative series. In 1865-66,
[48:36] Speaker 1: a Lancet commission of three doctors inspected many London workhouse
[48:42] Speaker 1: infirmaries and thus published scathing reports. They found scenes of squalor.
[48:50] Speaker 1: Overcrowded wards with patients of all ages jumbled up together.
[48:56] Speaker 1: lack of proper ventilation, untrained pauper women acting as nurses
[49:01] Speaker 1: for wanted professionals, and glaring neglect of hygiene. In one case,
[49:08] Speaker 1: as noted, over five hundred sick paupers shared barely three
[49:12] Speaker 1: hundred beds, some sleeping two to a bed or just
[49:17] Speaker 1: on the floor. In another, dying patients had to endure
[49:22] Speaker 1: the stench of open latrines next to their wards such
[49:26] Speaker 1: revelations caused a public outrage polite society was never exposed
[49:32] Speaker 1: to this sort of reality before to think it was
[49:35] Speaker 1: happening within a stone's throw that's a bit shocking the
[49:41] Speaker 1: government verified the findings with its own inquiry, confirming the
[49:46] Speaker 1: shameful neglect. Parliament was stirred to act. A major outcome
[49:53] Speaker 1: of these pressures was the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867,
[49:58] Speaker 1: which required London to establish separate, well-equipped infirmaries for the
[50:03] Speaker 1: sick poor, distinct from general workhouses. In the ensuing years,
[50:10] Speaker 1: Many large cities built modern hospitals for paupers, and the
[50:13] Speaker 1: worst abuses in medical care were addressed. Pioneering nurses trained
[50:19] Speaker 1: by Florence Nightingale herself even began working in some workhouse
[50:24] Speaker 1: infirmaries by the late 1860s. For example, Nightingale sent nurses
[50:30] Speaker 1: to the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary in 1865, and Nightingale herself
[50:36] Speaker 1: became an advocate for for separating the sick from the
[50:40] Speaker 1: able-bodied paupers, and improving general nursing standards. These reforms meant,
[50:47] Speaker 1: that by the late Victorian period, a destitute person in, say, London,
[50:53] Speaker 1: might end up in a halfway decent infirmary ward, at
[50:57] Speaker 1: least with a trained nurse. A far cry from the
[51:01] Speaker 1: horror of the 1840s sick room. However, In rural areas
[51:07] Speaker 1: in smaller towns such standards often lagged, and workhouse medical
[51:12] Speaker 1: care could remain very poor up to the end of
[51:15] Speaker 1: the century. For those with mental illness, the situation was
[51:21] Speaker 1: similarly dire. Early on, mentally ill paupers were kept in
[51:26] Speaker 1: workhouses unless they were dangerously insane, in which case they
[51:31] Speaker 1: might be sent to an asylum. This meant that many
[51:34] Speaker 1: people with depression dementia, or mild psychiatric issues languished without
[51:41] Speaker 1: proper treatment, sometimes locked in small cells or restrained. The
[51:48] Speaker 1: lunacy acts eventually required moving many of them onto county asylums,
[51:56] Speaker 1: but again, enforcement was uneven. Workhouse records show inmates labelled
[52:01] Speaker 1: lunatic or imbecile, living there for years. To die in
[52:08] Speaker 1: the workhouse was considered a shame by many Victorians, a
[52:13] Speaker 1: sad end that families tried to avoid for their loved ones. Nevertheless,
[52:19] Speaker 1: thousands did die there. Workhouses had their own burial grounds
[52:24] Speaker 1: or arrangements with local cemeteries for pauper funerals. A pauper's
[52:29] Speaker 1: coffin was typically simple, unadorned, unless a relative could claim
[52:34] Speaker 1: the body, pay for the burial... The deceased was buried
[52:38] Speaker 1: in an unmarked communal grave. The indignities sometimes extended beyond death.
[52:45] Speaker 1: There were dark rumours, partially true, by the way, that
[52:50] Speaker 1: pauper corpses were more likely to be handed over to
[52:53] Speaker 1: medical schools for dissection, as the 1832 Anatomy Act had
[52:59] Speaker 1: made unclaimed bodies available for that purpose. This added to
[53:05] Speaker 1: the dread of entering the workhouse for many poor people.
[53:09] Speaker 1: Fear not only of suffering in life, but of post-mortem indignity. Well,
[53:19] Speaker 1: let's talk about the sunset period, I suppose. Victorian workhouses
[53:27] Speaker 1: occupied an outsized place in the public consciousness. They weren't
[53:33] Speaker 1: hidden away Most towns had a hulking workhouse building visible
[53:39] Speaker 1: on the horizon, a constant reminder of those who couldn't
[53:43] Speaker 1: support themselves. And as such, workhouses featured prominently in Victorian politics,
[53:50] Speaker 1: literature and debates about morality and social responsibility. Public perception
[53:56] Speaker 1: of these institutions underwent a shift over the centuries. Though
[54:02] Speaker 1: fear and loathing remained the common thread. In the 1830s
[54:08] Speaker 1: and 40s, when the new workhouse system was introduced, it
[54:12] Speaker 1: met with immediate hostility in many quarters. The very idea
[54:17] Speaker 1: of classifying and incarcerating the poor offended traditionalists and radicals alike.
[54:25] Speaker 1: Rural communities that had been used to a more paternalistic
[54:29] Speaker 1: parish relief resented the interference of central authority. In the
[54:36] Speaker 1: north of England, textile districts reeling from economic depression saw
[54:41] Speaker 1: the workhouse as a symbol of southern English oppression, London
[54:46] Speaker 1: making decisions on their behalf and ruining everything. In fact,
[54:52] Speaker 1: there were instances of direct action During the Rebeca riots
[54:59] Speaker 1: in Wales in 1839-43, ostensibly protesting toll roads, angry crowds
[55:07] Speaker 1: also attacked workhouses, seeing them as instruments of an unjust law.
[55:13] Speaker 1: Mobs in East Anglia and the Midlands stormed workhouses in
[55:17] Speaker 1: the 1830s, and troops had to be called in to
[55:20] Speaker 1: protect the buildings. In popular folklore, Workhouses quickly earned the moniker,
[55:27] Speaker 1: the Poor Law Bastilles, likening them to the infamous fortress
[55:33] Speaker 1: prison of the French Revolution. William Covet, a popular journalist,
[55:40] Speaker 1: derided the new workhouses with this term, emphasising their coercive nature.
[55:46] Speaker 1: Cartoons in popular papers depicted the workhouse guardians as cruel jailers,
[55:53] Speaker 1: and the inmates as poor victims. Literature amplified the negative images.
[56:00] Speaker 1: Dickens was of course the most influential voice. In Oliver Twist,
[56:04] Speaker 1: serialized between 1837 to 39, he portrayed the parish workhouses
[56:10] Speaker 1: as a starvation factory. All hypocrisy, all heartlessness. His unforgettable
[56:18] Speaker 1: scene of little Oliver asking for more gruel, encapsulates the
[56:23] Speaker 1: public's worst fears, that the workhouse systematically underfed and mistreated
[56:29] Speaker 1: the innocent. But he didn't stop with Oliver Twist. In
[56:34] Speaker 1: his later works and letters, he continued to condemn the
[56:37] Speaker 1: principles of the new poor law. In A Christmas Carol, 1843,
[56:44] Speaker 1: Scrooge's infamous question, are there no prisons, are there no workhouses,
[56:49] Speaker 1: is meant to shock the readers with the realisation that
[56:52] Speaker 1: some victors of industry view the poor with such cold,
[56:58] Speaker 1: disdainful utilitarianism. Other writers followed suit. For example, Elizabeth Gaskell
[57:07] Speaker 1: in Mary Barton, 1848, and North and South in 1855.
[57:14] Speaker 1: It touches on the humiliation of the workhouse looming over
[57:17] Speaker 1: struggling families. In fact, the very word workhouse became a
[57:22] Speaker 1: byword for a fate to be avoided at all costs.
[57:26] Speaker 1: Parents would threaten unruly children that they'd end up in
[57:31] Speaker 1: the workhouse if they didn't behave right and work hard. However,
[57:39] Speaker 1: not everyone in Victorian Britain was uniformly critical. Some officials
[57:45] Speaker 1: and rate-paying citizens believed the workhouses were a regrettable but
[57:50] Speaker 1: ultimately unnecessary institution. They pointed to instances where the able-bodied
[57:56] Speaker 1: poor indeed avoided the workhouse by finding work, proof that
[58:02] Speaker 1: the deterrent was effective. There were also accounts in local
[58:07] Speaker 1: newspapers of workhouses' masters who ran clean, orderly establishments. and
[58:13] Speaker 1: treated inmates decently. And you can certainly guess that those
[58:19] Speaker 1: in support tended to doubt those examples more than the
[58:23] Speaker 1: other end of the spectrum. Well, for example, by the 1880s,
[58:30] Speaker 1: some workhouses began organising small outings for well-behaved inmates, an
[58:36] Speaker 1: afternoon at the seaside for the elderly, or a Christmas
[58:40] Speaker 1: tea for the children. These were publicised in order to
[58:45] Speaker 1: counter the worst imagers. One article from 1896 showed a
[58:51] Speaker 1: photograph of a London workhouse resident on a day trip
[58:55] Speaker 1: to the country. He was with his friends enjoying mugs
[58:59] Speaker 1: of beer, hardly the stuff of the Dickensian gloom. It's propaganda,
[59:06] Speaker 1: if you didn't catch it. But either way, such a
[59:10] Speaker 1: narrative suggested that conditions had improved, and that not all
[59:15] Speaker 1: who lived in workhouses were utterly miserable. Of course, there
[59:20] Speaker 1: were certainly the people who were not invited to the
[59:23] Speaker 1: country trip. Indeed, there emerged by the late Victorian era
[59:30] Speaker 1: the curious figure of the workhouse connoisseur, chronic homeless individuals
[59:36] Speaker 1: who would drift in and out of various workhouses. Some
[59:40] Speaker 1: of these paupers actually preferred the workhouse to life on
[59:43] Speaker 1: the street and gamed the system by leaving just before
[59:48] Speaker 1: they might be expelled for overstaying, only to enter another
[59:52] Speaker 1: union's workhouse later on. One 81-year-old woman, admitted herself to
[59:58] Speaker 1: the City of London workhouse 163 times in the year
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: of 1901 alone, treating it as kind of a revolving shelter.
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: Such cases were rare exception to the general dread of
[1:00:12] Speaker 1: the institution, but they showed that by the end of
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: the 19th century the workhouse had taken on a more
[1:00:19] Speaker 1: complex role, part deterrent, part welfare net. But public opinion
[1:00:26] Speaker 1: on the whole steadily shifted toward pity and reform. The
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: sensational exposés we discussed, Hanover, the Lancet Commission, things like that,
[1:00:38] Speaker 1: it all fuelled outrage. Greenwood, a London journalist, posed as
[1:00:44] Speaker 1: a vagrant and got himself admitted to a workhouse, later
[1:00:49] Speaker 1: publishing an account of a single night there, called A
[1:00:52] Speaker 1: Night in the Workhouse. detailing revolting filth, rather callous staff,
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: and the despair of inmates. The article caused a stir
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: and made workhouse conditions a topic of drawing-room conversation. Campaigners
[1:01:11] Speaker 1: like Annie Besant and George Bernard Shaw in the late
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: 19th century lambasted the workhouse system in political meetings, arguing
[1:01:20] Speaker 1: that a modern civilised nation such as Britain should not
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: subject its poor to such an ordeal. By the 80s
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: and 90s, the workhouse had become less uniformly severe than
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: in 1834. More allowance was made for the vulnerable, but
[1:01:39] Speaker 1: it was still stigmatizing. The poor themselves continued to use
[1:01:44] Speaker 1: the term the spike or the house in hushed tones,
[1:01:50] Speaker 1: reflecting fear. and as the Victorian era drew to a close,
[1:01:56] Speaker 1: the writing was on the wall for the workhouse system.
[1:02:01] Speaker 1: The number of inmates was actually rising, peaking in the
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: early 20th century, with over 250,000 indoor paupers in England
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: and Wales, but these were increasingly the old and the sick,
[1:02:15] Speaker 1: not the sturdy loafers imagined in the 1830s. The Edwardian
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: era brought new social legislation, old age pensions in 1908,
[1:02:26] Speaker 1: and even job centres, at the time called labour exchanges.
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: Promises of unemployment insurance came eventually too. The idea was
[1:02:37] Speaker 1: to prevent people from needing the workhouse at all. In 1913,
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: a quarter of a million paupers were in workhouses, but
[1:02:47] Speaker 1: many were there essentially as hospital patients or infirm elderly.
[1:02:52] Speaker 1: The social elite and working-class representatives alike agreed that the
[1:02:57] Speaker 1: Victorian workhouse had simply outlived its time. And in 1929,
[1:03:03] Speaker 1: the Parliament passed an Act to officially abolish the poor
[1:03:08] Speaker 1: law unions and convert or close the workhouses. Most workhouse
[1:03:14] Speaker 1: buildings were then repurposed as hospitals, mental asylums, which were
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a different video, won't we?
[1:03:23] Speaker 1: Or housing for the poor. By 1948, with the creation
[1:03:29] Speaker 1: of the modern welfare state and the National Health Service,
[1:03:33] Speaker 1: the very last vestiges of the workhouse system were all
[1:03:38] Speaker 1: but dismantled. And that's where our story comes to an end.
[1:03:45] Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed our time together today. Didn't we
[1:03:49] Speaker 1: have fun? Well, I don't know. I don't think fun
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: is the word for it. But we certainly learned a
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: few things. Unless you fell asleep. I bet you fell asleep,
[1:04:02] Speaker 1: didn't you? If you're still awake, you should probably comment
[1:04:05] Speaker 1: and tell me that you're awake. It will confuse the others. Anyway,
[1:04:13] Speaker 1: I'd like to thank the top dear patrons and supporters.
[1:04:17] Speaker 1: You probably noticed you didn't get any ads. Well, it's
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: because of these kind people. Dark, Kimberly, Christine, Sally, Amber, Susan, Cameron, Legitmus, Carrie, Charlene, Lynn, Therese, Katiana, Nicholas, Ulf, Edneer, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. Neuronerd, Erin, Jayden, Jim, Jeffrey, Jessica, Madeline, Melissa,
[1:04:40] Speaker 1: Orthodox Review, Scott, Star Factory, Cheryl, Wendy, Josie, Sarah, Ryan, Thor, Cameron, Stefan, Kevin, HMSHH, Crystal, Dalbury, Anthony, Lucy, Brandon,
[1:04:54] Speaker 1: and Goo Goo Bubonic. Thank you so much. Right, well,
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: that's it. So, once again, thank you for listening. And
[1:05:08] Speaker 1: tell all your friends about me or something. I don't know.
[1:05:12] Speaker 1: Thank you, everyone. Good night. Lots of love to you all.
[1:05:15] Speaker 1: I hope you're all doing well out there. I know
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: it's a struggle sometimes, but we're all doing our best. Hey,
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: at least we're not in a damn workhouse. Could be worse.
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: Good night, everyone. See you in the next video.

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