WHAT PROBLEMS DID THE WORKHOUSE SOLVE?

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In this essay I intend to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the workhouse system. By starting with a brief introduction to how and why the need for a workhouse arose, with references to relevant journals and websites, I hope to illustrate how the initial benefit scheme was abused and later abolished. Thus showing the origin of the present day social benefit system.

Workhouses are said to have dated back from 1601 when, through the Act for the Relief of the Poor, local parishes were assigned responsibility of the poor in their parish. In the parishes that could afford to do so, small workhouses were built in order to employ both the poor, and children whose parents were deemed too poor to look after them. It was not regarded as a place of punishment, but was even referred to in some cases as, 'Pauper Palaces,' as some thought conditions were reasonable and often better than those found living at home employed in the workplace. This meant parish relief had come to be seen, by those that did not want to work, as an easy option and so something had to be done. As well as workhouses, poor relief often went further and money or food was given to those deemed unable to work, for example, the lame, old, and blind, etc. living at home. This was called the Speenhamland System, set up in 175 in Berkshire, where a Poor Rate was distributed, with the amount received depending on the size of the family and the price of a large loaf of bread at the time. The cost of giving relief to the poor was increasing dramatically, and so was the number of people claiming to need this relief. For example, in 181 the amount of money spent on poor relief was £7,07,000 when in 1776 the amount was only £1,50,000. Tax revenue or a 'tithe' as it was termed, normally about one tenth of an income, was collected from every member of the community and paid for the cost of the relief of the poor. However, there was a great dislike amongst the community of having to pay for what they thought was others' laziness. In 180, due to high prices and unemployment among agricultural workers, the "Captain Swing riots took place. Landowners, who were also the employers, were threatened and it was thought that if they had the ability to control the way in which poor relief was administered, then they would also have control over the behaviour of the labourers. In a bid to regain social control a Royal Commission reviewed the Poor Law in 18 in order to scrutinize how the law was implemented and to suggest possible amendments to it. However, its fate had already been decided, as on the 6 December 1841 a letter from Sir James Graham to Sir Robert Peel, wrote that even before the Commission had been established, the government had already planned what to do with the poor.

In 184, The Poor Law Amendment Act came into fruition and workhouses became more widely established in Britain. This law united parishes in an attempt to change the state of the relief given to the poor. They wanted to diminish the cost of caring for the poor, prevent beggars abusing the scheme and impose a system that would be the same all over the country.

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Approximately 15,000 parishes in England and Wales were linked in unions with each other, having their own workhouse and a Board of Guardians to supervise. The buildings were designed to segregate the different categories of pauper male and female, able-bodied and infirm, and children. Families were split apart by walls and used to make money for the institution. There was to be no speaking even on tea breaks or punishment would be given. It was reported children seen to be slacking would be slapped with a belt or even have their heads dipped in boiling water.

The rich presumed the poor were that way due to laziness; they called them the 'undeserving poor'. However, this was not the case, people were poor because of unemployment, a rise in the population, disease and high food prices etc. The poor were no longer bound to their parish through feudal bonds and with the Enclosure Movement between the 16th and 18th centuries and the commercialisation of agriculture and the take over of land (common pastures) by landlords, a large section of society had now been made poor. Resentment towards the unfortunate had grown to be strong, and often the work within these workhouses was made to be extremely difficult. As well as being hired out, the workhouse staff had to do deliberately tedious chores such as stone-breaking, sack-making, corn-grinding, laundry work, gardening, cooking & sewing. In order to make fertilizer, animal and human bones were crushed by hand, and it was reported that in the Andover Workhouse, inmates were so hungry they were found eating the scraps off these bones. Thankfully, bone crushing was banned after 1845. So the system had now become a test to find the deserving and the undeserving poor, it was thought anyone prepared to accept relief in the workhouse must have been lacking the moral determination to survive outside it. Workhouses had changed; they were now a terrible last resort for those that could afford no better.

The Workhouse should be a place of hardship, of coarse fare, of degradation and humility; it should be administered with strictness, with severity; it should be as repulsive as is consistent with humanity.

The Revd. H. H. Milman to Edwin Chadwick, 18

Although at the time, it was thought that the workhouses would solve many social problems, it actually had only a few minor advantages. As it was such a disgrace and shame for you and your family to be sent to work in a workhouse, it encouraged men, as the sole breadwinner, to work harder. This improved the quality of the workforce, although forced; production went up for the few that were in common market employment. This can also be related to Abraham Maslows modern day theory 'Hierarchy of needs' (14) giving the poor a greater sense of self-esteem and the feeling that they contributed to society. Also, people were given food, it was inadequate in nutritional value and monotonous, but had they been home, many would have been too poor to even have this; it was better than starvation. (The official ration in HM Prisons at that time was ounces of food a week; the workhouse diet was between 17 and 18 ounces a week only)

In many workhouses, there was often the provision of education, for children up to the age of 14. It was stated in the rules of the workhouse that for three of the working hours at least every day, lessons in reading writing and the principles of Christian religion must be taught. Had these children been at home, many would have had to forego education in order to work anyway. It has been reported that some workhouses even helped children to emigrate, provided apprentice work and classes in a trade skill may have been taught.

If single mothers could not support themselves and their offspring, they would have to enter the workhouse. Due to the Bastardy Clause in the 184 Act, all illegitimate children were the responsibility of their mothers until the age of 16; the father became free of all legal implications towards the child and his/her mother. Mothers now knew they could not receive help from the father and the threat of the workhouse was a great one. This played its part somewhat in discouraging women in promiscuous relationships for fear of being cast into the workhouse with their bastard child. However, in 1844 this controversial act was overturned with another, stating that the mother could apply for maintenance from the father regardless if she was accepting poor relief.

Instead, I believe the workhouses increased the trade in child labour; textile factory owners would purchase innocent children from orphanages and force them to sign a contract stating they were now the property of the factory. Usually the age at which a child would start work was 5 years old, they were much cheaper labour, easier to house and would generally cause less of a problem so they were prime material for capitalist factory owners. The aged and infirm were also made to work in this manner as well as young single mothers who had nowhere else to go. Due to the lack of safety consideration, the factories were extremely dangerous. Because the employees were so overworked, accidents would often happen, taking off a limb as a result of tiredness. A far cry from the ideal 'utopian society' as written about by St Thomas Moore. (1478-155)

The 184 Act received much criticism from many influential members of society, including The Times. Which, prior to its action, on the 0th April 184, criticized the bill claiming it would disgrace the statute-book. Later, on 16th January 188 it accused the workhouses of, cruelty to children and the aged, systematic famishing, and neglect of the sick. Richard Oastler, spoke out against the new Poor Law, calling the workhouses 'Prisons for the Poor.' Also opposed to the workhouses were David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Henry Mayhew, Dr Barnardo, William, Charles and Catherine Booth and Seebohm Rowntree son of Joseph Rowntree.

In conclusion, I think the original economic idea of the workhouse was an innocent attempt at solving a problem too many poor, homeless un-employed people. To remedy that problem the poor needed to have a job and a house, hence the workhouse. Here, the poor would get fed, access to showers, a bed etc, so the welfare cost would have been met, but they would also be producing a commodity that would fetch a price. However, this simple plan was turned into a way of punishing people for being poor. Factory owners held all the power over workers and, I believe, it was the absent legislation that was so damaging.

References

Book Referencing

· Crompton Frank Workhouse Children (17)

· Englander David Poverty & Poor Law Reform in 1c Britain (18)

· Fraser D The Evolution of the British Welfare State. London Macmillan (184)

· Hill K. County records Dept. Cambridge

· Hill Michael Understanding Social Policy, Oxford Blackwell (1)

· Hinde, G.B., Provision for the Relief of the Poor in Manchester, 1754-186 (Chetham Society, 175)

· Hitchcock, T, Paupers and preachers the SPCK and the parochial workhouse movement in Lee Davison, et al, eds, Stilling the Grumbling Hive The Response to Social and Economic Problems in England, 168-1750 (Allen Sutton, 1).

· Jones K The making of social policy in Britain 18-10. London Athlone Press

· Journal of the Workhouse Visiting Society (185-65)

· Longbottom Alan The London Medical Gazette187-8 Vol. 1 105 pp p 6 7th January (188)

· Maslow Abraham, Motivation and Personality, nd ed., Harper & Row, (170)

· Slack, Paul. The English Poor Law, 151-178, (10)

· Sutton Alan. Stilling the Grumbling Hive The Response to Social and Economic Problems, 1688-1750 1,

· Taylor, Geoffrey, The Problem of Poverty, 1660-184 (Longman, 16).

· Webb Sidney & Beatrice English Poor Law History ( vols 17-)

Website referencing

http//users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse

http//learningcurve.pro.gov.uk/victorianbritain/caring/timeline.htm

http//65.107.11.06/history/poorlaw/royalcom.html

www.workhouses.co.uk

www.workhouses.org.uk

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