The Workhouse System 1834-1929

The Workhouse System 1834-1929 PDF Author: M. A. Crowther
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317236823
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
First published in 1981. Professor Crowther traces the history of the workhouse system from the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 to the Local Government Act of 1929. At their outset the large residential institutions were seen by the Poor Law Commissioners as a cure for nearly all social ills. In fact these formidable, impersonal, prison-like buildings – housing all paupers under one roof – became institutionalised: places where routine came to be an end in itself. In the early twentieth century some of the workhouses became hospitals or homes for the old or handicapped but many continued to form a residual service for those who needed long-term care. Crowther pays attention not only to the administrators but also to the inmates and their daily life. She illustrates that the workhouse system was not simply a nineteenth-century phenomenon but a forerunner of many of today’s social institutions.

The Workhouse System 1834-1929

The Workhouse System 1834-1929 PDF Author: M. A. Crowther
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317236823
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
First published in 1981. Professor Crowther traces the history of the workhouse system from the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 to the Local Government Act of 1929. At their outset the large residential institutions were seen by the Poor Law Commissioners as a cure for nearly all social ills. In fact these formidable, impersonal, prison-like buildings – housing all paupers under one roof – became institutionalised: places where routine came to be an end in itself. In the early twentieth century some of the workhouses became hospitals or homes for the old or handicapped but many continued to form a residual service for those who needed long-term care. Crowther pays attention not only to the administrators but also to the inmates and their daily life. She illustrates that the workhouse system was not simply a nineteenth-century phenomenon but a forerunner of many of today’s social institutions.

Life in the Victorian Workhouse, 1834

Life in the Victorian Workhouse, 1834 PDF Author: Barbara O'Sullivan
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781499606805
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Life in the Victorian Workhouse, 1834, A Novel, is just a brief outline of what really went on in Britain's workhouses until they were abolished. Upon entry into the workhouse, a pauper would not expect to be paid for his or her work in exchange for food and a small narrow wooden bed with a pillow and mattress filled with straw. Their clothes were taken away and put into storage until their departure, and in exchange they were given shapeless uniforms. An unmarried mother could expect to be given a canary yellow jacket to wear to identify her as such to the rest of the inmates so that she would be shunned. Wives were separated from their husbands until they were sixty years old and not permitted to sleep together until that time, children were separated from their mothers and lodged in separate accommodation blocks. Rationed food was served up to them in bleak bare halls where row upon horizontal row of people sat, men separated from women, and they had to enter by separate doorways. Only to look up at the sign that hung on the wall, and read, "GOD IS GOOD". Their misdemeanours were paid for by punishment and their lives could only be described as hellish by modern day standards. There were reports in one workhouse of men eating the stale meat from the bones they were given to crush, so hungry were they during the course of their work. Old women were given seats to sit on during the course of their work, to pick oakum from the centre of thick rope until their fingertips were bleeding, and some young men were given the task of stone breaking large rocks into small pieces of stone. There were asylum blocks for those inmates who went mad, and sometimes straitjackets were used to restrain them. Many of the inmates could not read or write and for them perhaps an unmarked paupers grave, within the boundaries of the workhouse in the graveyard, was to be their resting place and they never got their clothes back after all.

Life in a Victorian Workhouse

Life in a Victorian Workhouse PDF Author: Alan Gallop
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0752486977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 58

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Book Description
What was it like in a Victorian Workhouse? Was the food really as bad as we imagine? Take a step back in time with Alan Gallop and ask yourself if you could have survived in such harsh conditions.

Poverty and Poor Law Reform in Nineteenth-Century Britain, 1834-1914

Poverty and Poor Law Reform in Nineteenth-Century Britain, 1834-1914 PDF Author: David Englander
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317883217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 is one of the most important pieces of social legislation ever enacted. Its principles and the workhouse system dominated attitudes to welfare provision for the next 80 years. This new Seminar Study explores the changing ideas to poverty over this period and assesses current debates on Victorian attitudes to the poor. David Englander reviews the old system of poor relief; he considers how the New Poor Law was enacted and received and looks at how it worked in practice. The chapter on the Scottish experience will be particularly welcomed, as will Dr Englander's discussion of the place of the Poor Law within British history.

Life in the Victorian and Edwardian Workhouse

Life in the Victorian and Edwardian Workhouse PDF Author: Michelle Higgs
Publisher: The History Press
ISBN: 0750966319
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
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 adn 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.

Oscar Defoe, 1834

Oscar Defoe, 1834 PDF Author: Barbara O'Sullivan
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1326380176
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
Oscar Defoe and the Victorian Workhouse, 1834 A review of chapter 6 - Syon House "With no time to read the whole book before the printers speed into action, I studied the chapter on Syon House, my family's London home for 400 years, and was immensely impressed by the accuracy of the author's research and the fluent style which brings the characters to life. The contrast between Syon and the workhouse and between the rich and poor, is a poignant reminder of the hellish life that so many lived in Victorian times. This brief taste of Barbara O'Sullivan's historical tale has certainly wetted my appetite for a more comprehensive study of Oscar Defoe." Duke of Northumberland,2006 "It is very interesting; a good period piece and has a nice historical flavour." J K Wingfield Digby, Sherborne Castle, Dorset, 2006

Sickness in the Workhouse

Sickness in the Workhouse PDF Author: Alistair Ritch
Publisher: Rochester Studies in Medical H
ISBN: 1580469752
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
England's New Poor Law (1834) transformed medical care in ways that have long been overlooked, or denigrated, by historians. Sickness in the Workhouse challenges these assumptions through a close examination of two urban workhouses in the west midlands from the passage of the New Poor Law until the outbreak of World War I.By closely analyzing the day-to-day practice of workhouse doctors and nurses, author Alistair Ritch questions the idea that medical care was invariably of poor quality and brought little benefit to patients. Medical staff in the workhouses labored under severe restraints and grappled with the immense health issues facing their patients. Sickness in the Workhouse brings to life this hidden group of workhouse staff and highlights their significance within the local health economy. Among other things, as the author notes, workhouses needed to provide medical care for nonpaupers, such as institutional isolation facilities for those with infectious diseases. This groundbreaking books highlights these doctors and nurses in order to illuminate our understanding of this significant yet little understood area of poor law history.ALISTAIR RITCH was consultant physician in geriatric medicine, City Hospital, Birmingham, and senior clinical lecturer, University of Birmingham, UK, and is currently honorary research fellow, History of Medicine Unit, University of Birmingham, UK.

Life in a Rural Workhouse

Life in a Rural Workhouse PDF Author: P. W. Randell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781907499753
Category : Poor
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
Examinations of what is what like to work in a Victorian workhouse.

Workhouse Children

Workhouse Children PDF Author: Frank Crompton
Publisher: Alan Sutton Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
This book investigates the treatment of children in the workhouses in the period 1780-1871. It examines the way in which children were treated, educated and trained, by whom they were cared for and the outcome of their treatment.

Dying for Victorian Medicine

Dying for Victorian Medicine PDF Author: E. Hurren
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023035565X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
The first book to provide a detailed analysis of the body-trafficking networks of the dead poor that underpinned the expansion of medical education from Victorian times. With an even-handed approach to the business of anatomy, Hurren uses remarkable case histories which still echo a vibrant body-business on the internet today in a biomedical age.