A few months after they left, the building stopped being homeless accommodation and was instead used by social services and for elderly care. Sections of it became derelict. In the former workhouse was bought by the National Trust, which restored it. Staff and volunteers dress up as Victorians and tell visitors of the building's past life. When I see people lying in shop doorways, I think, 'What is your story and will anybody ever want to listen to it?
The room where Susan lived has been redecorated as a near-replica of what it looked like when she was there. She says visitors are shocked when they happen upon the relatively modern furnishings amid the Victorian costumes and settings of the rest of the workhouse.
In later years, Susan drifted apart from her siblings. Age 60, she is married with grown-up children and has just retired from her work as a shop manager. When you live in a place like that, with no neighbours, no friends, you really know what isolation feels like.
It's a really deep-down thing that will always be with me. Send your story ideas to eastmidsnews bbc. Pauper's path. Image source, Getty Images. The workhouse system had many prominent critics, including the author Charles Dickens. Southwell's workhouse was built in by the Rev John Beecher, with its architecture influenced by prison design. It was one of the first examples of a notoriously harsh regime, which was adopted nationally in , to force vulnerable people to work in exchange for accommodation and food.
The workhouse was home to inhabitants - men, women and children - who were split up and forbidden from meeting. Those judged too infirm to work were called the "blameless" and received better treatment but the rest were forced into tedious, repetitive work such as rock breaking or rope picking.
In , a new welfare system saw the end of Southwell's function as a workhouse and it was used as temporary homeless accommodation until However, the National Trust, which now owns the site, says some social historians view such shelters as similar to workhouses.
Image source, Susan Swinton. At school Susan first on the left was stigmatised because of where she lived. Coming to the workhouse was, at first, a relief for Susan but steadily the cramped confines wore her down. Susan describes her mother, Joan, as "a good mum" but the workhouse life meant she "gave up". The whole family had to share one small room. Susan was left to take responsibility for her family, as her mother's health deteriorated.
By the law stipulated in the Poor Relief Act that if a person was able and willing, they needed to work in order to receive support. Furthermore in , a further legal framework would make the parish responsible for enacting the poor relief within its geographic boundaries.
Clerkenwell Workhouse, This would be the foundation of the principles of the Victorian workhouse, where the state would provide relief and the legal responsibility fell on the parish. The oldest documented example of the workhouse dates back to , although variations of the institution were thought to have predated it. People who were able to work were thus given the offer of employment in a house of correction, essentially to serve as a punishment for people who were capable of working but were unwilling.
With the advent of the law, other measures included ideas about the construction of homes for the elderly or infirm. The seventeenth century was the era which witnessed an increase in state involvement in pauperism. In the following years, further acts were brought in which would help to formalise the structure and practice of the workhouse.
By , a government survey was conducted on workhouses, finding that in around institutions, the total capacity numbered around 90, places. Some of the acts included the Workhouses Test Act which helped to spur the growth of the system.
In essence, the act would oblige anyone looking to receive poor relief to enter the workhouse and proceed to work for a set amount of time, regularly, for no pay, in a system called indoor relief. Furthermore, in Thomas Gilbert introduced a new act called Relief of the Poor but more commonly known by his name, which was set up to allow parishes to join together to form unions in order to share the costs.
These became known as Gilbert Unions and by creating larger groups it was intended to allow for the maintenance of larger workhouses. In practice, very few unions were created and the issue of funding for authorities led to cost cutting solutions. When enacting the Poor Laws in some cases, some parishes forced horrendous family situations, for example whereby a husband would sell his wife in order to avoid them becoming a burden which would prove costly to the local authorities. The laws brought in throughout the century would only help to entrench the system of the workhouse further into society.
Surviving in such places proved perilous, as mortality rates were high especially with diseases such as smallpox and measles spreading like wildfire. Conditions were cramped with beds squashed together, hardly any room to move and with little light. YouTube credit: IrishWorkhouseCentre. Meanwhile, the Donaghmore workhouse museum in Co Laois was used by the former Avonmore Coop when a group of farmers decided to act to conserve the buildings, which were becoming dilapidated.
Trevor Stanley of the Donaghmore workhouse museum told TheJournal. Stanley says that a series of sketches were discovered on the site which suggest that the property was used as to billet English troops for a period. The drawings of soldiers have English names and titles and are dated After spending about a year or so at the property, the troops left and the workhouse lay idle until when locals and the parish priest set up a co-op at the site.
The part of the original workhouse site which the museum is based on is now owned by Laois County Council, with which the museum group has a lease. It opens seven days a week from June through September, and five days a week over the rest of the year.
Surviving workhouse records of individual inmate details are patchy, at best, given that many records were destroyed in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Our particular workhouse was open for 33 years and we have six of what should have been a total of There would be a weekly inventory of how many men, women and children entered or how many people died, but not their names or details, Stanley said.
He says that birth and death records are a good source of information about workhouse inmates. Or through birth or death certificate. In my case, it was a death certificate that was the connection.
Actually, a large number of children had the workhouse as a place of birth. And it was often the final resting place for many of the elderly who either had no family to care for them or who were beyond their care in their final days and weeks. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at www. Please note that TheJournal. For more information on cookies please refer to our cookies policy.
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