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Dependency, the workhouse and family ties in later

eighteenth-century England

Alysa Levene and Susannah Ottaway

On Wednesday, April 6th, 1791, Mr William Ward made a rare appearance at a town meeting in

Sheffield, alarmed that plans to erect a new workhouse were going to go forward. Amongst the

concerns that Ward voiced at this meeting (according to a pamphlet he later published) was his

cry that the parish was ‘building walls to immure our fellow-creatures’ and depriving ‘the

prudent mechanic’ of ‘the blessed comforts of his family by his own fireside’. While Ward now

witnessed ‘Children of industrious peasants…earning their bread at seven, working daily, the

boys with their fathers, and the girls with their mothers…’ this Bill would end such family work

and ‘if whole families are forced into the House for want of a little temporary relief, the

consciousness of having lost their respectability… will be apt to create in them a slavish

indifference to esteem, and injure the best interests of society’1 and end, as well ‘a spirit of

independence [which, he felt] should be cherished in the lower orders of society’2

This man of the middling sort voiced his opposition to Sheffield’s new workhouse with a

vocabulary that knit together his concerns for the individual and family rights of the poor, and

reminds us that the construction of workhouses, like the implementation of poor law policies in

general under the Old Poor Law, can be read through a lens of the history of families, not just

individuals. Indeed, if we examine the pillars of the Elizabethan poor laws (and the key

revisions to them from the seventeenth century), most were linked to family issues: care of the

orphaned and impotent referenced the responsibility of relations as well as the role of the parish

                                                                                                                         1 Here, Ward is citing Howard on prisons. 2 W. Ward, The Substance of Mr. Ward’s Speech at the Town-Hall in Sheffield, On Wednesday, April 6th, 1791, At a Meeting of the Inhabitants who attended in Pursuance of an Advertisement inserted in the Sheffield Papers, to give their assent or dissent to The Bill for The Proposed New Workhouse (Sheffield?, 1791). The incident sounds somewhat reminiscent of a rebellion in Suffolk against a house of industry Nacton, and several other places, discussed in Muskett, Paul.; Bulletin –“A Picturesque Rebellion? The Suffolk Workhouses in 1765,” Society for the Study of Labour History 1980 (41): 28-31. But that rebellion was much more serious, involving hundreds of people and resulting in the leveling of the Bulcamp workhouse. “The main fault of the Nacton regime was its insistence that economic dependence meant the loss of the right to make any decisions” (30) . For later pauper protests over workhouses see David Green, “PAUPER PROTESTS: POWER AND RESISTANCE IN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY LONDON WORKHOUSES,” Social History 2006 31(2): 137-159

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in fictive parenting; pauper apprenticeship - an urgent concern on the ground locally - was

essentially about the appropriate time and place for severing nuclear family bonds and replacing

them with another kind of family relationship; and the settlement acts were intricately tied to the

inheritance of place through family bonds and blood.

Ideas Regarding the Effects of Workhouses on Families

Housing was an important tool in managing the family aspect of the poor law, and so any study

of the workhouse must also be a study of the families of the poor. Workhouses were a key topic

of debate within the public sphere of the long eighteenth century amongst those who considered

the problem of poverty and the need for reform of the poor laws, and from the seventeenth

century onward, English discussions and disputes over the potential benefit of workhouses for

the poor were centrally concerned with the effects of such institutions on the families of the poor.

Although those who wrote on workhouses covered a wide spectrum of ideas in this regard, we

can roughly contrast three groups: those who saw workhouses as a way to strengthen poor

families by providing additional training and work opportunities for individuals who were then

supposed to return to contribute to the family economy; those who focused on the benefit of

removing poor children from bad parental influence, and those who opposed workhouses

because they severed family bonds.

A complete survey of workhouse advocates and opponents lies well beyond the scope of this

paper, but we can instructively draw out the contrasts amongst these three schools of thought by

comparing a few key thinkers in each of the major stages of workhouse development in the long

eighteenth century. Our task in selecting these reformers is made easier by the fact that two of

the major commentators of the late eighteenth century (F.M. Eden and Richard Burn) had nearly

identical lists of the most important reformers of the post-Restoration period, so we can be

assured that the reformers mentioned below were of major importance to eighteenth-century poor

law authorities.3

                                                                                                                         3 See Eden’s discussion of Burn’s History of the Poor Laws (1764): “The plans he notices are those suggested by Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Josiah Child, Mr. Cary, Mr. Hay, Mr. Alcock, the Author of ‘Considerations on several Proposals lately made for the better Maintenance of the Poor,’ published in 1752, the Earl of Hillsborough, Sir Richard Lloyd, Mr. Fielding, and Mr. Cooper.” F.M. Eden, The State of the Poor (London, 1797) I: 345-346.

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Thomas Firmin, an important early advocate of the workhouse, exhibits a positive belief in the

capacity to reform the family relations of the poor, and of the benefits of providing schools of

industry, which are nicely summarized in a pamphlet first published in 1678 where he suggested:

That every Parish that abounds with Poor People, would set up a School in the nature of a

Workhouse, to teach their poor Children to work in, who for want thereof, now wander

up and down the Parish and parts adjacent, and between Begging and Stealing, get a sorry

living, but never bring any thing to their poor Parents, nor earn one Farthing towards their

own maintenance, or good of the Nation….This [school] in a short time, would be found

very advantagious, not only to the poor Children themselves, who by this means, while

young should be inured to labour, and taught to get their own Livings, but also to their

Parents, who should hereby both be freed from the Charge of keeping them, and in time,

be helpt by their Labours...4

Consistently, and explicitly in this passage, Firmin shows a deep concern for the family

economies of the poor, and he is only willing to take children out of the family home on the

assurance that he will ensure that they will earn wages that go right back into the family

economy.5

Family orientated writers like Firmin were important in conceptualizing the role of the general

workhouse: Samuel Hartlib (one of Firmin’s predecessors), for example, was instrumental in

promoting the foundation of the London Corporation (although the Corporation had a very up

and down route to its eventual status), and Firmin’s London workhouse served as a template to

                                                                                                                         

4 Thomas Firmin, Some Proposals For the Imployment of the Poor and For the Prevention of Idleness and the Consequence thereof, Begging, A practice so Dishonourable to the Nation and to the Christian Religion (London, 1681), 2nd edition, 2, see also 7-8. Oscar Sherwin, “Thomas Firmin: Puritan Precursor of WPA,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. 22, 1 (1950): 38-41.

5 Firmin’s concern for the family is evident here and puts into question A.L. Beier’s assertion that Locke’s emphasis on family poverty (in his memorandum to the Board of Trade) was original to him. AL Beier, “’Utter Strangers to Industry, Morality and Religion’: John Locke on the Poor,” Eighteenth-Century Life 12, 3 (Nov 1988), 36-7. This also highlights the derivative nature of Locke’s proposal; see also Joan Simon, “From Charity School to Workhouse in the 1720s: The SPCK and Mr Marriott’s Solution,” History of Education 17, 2 (1988), 113-129.

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many later experiments.6 But these authors are less often cited by their eighteenth-century

successors than were their near contemporaries Josiah Child and Matthew Hale, whose attitudes

towards the families of the poor were more negative. Child’s and Hale’s views were particularly

influential amongst those writers, politicians and activists of the 1690s and 1710s, many linked

with the SPCK, who sought to spread institutionalization for the poor.7

Hale and Child often showed a vehement hostility to the families of the poor, a hostility that is

most clearly articulated in the explicit desire to take children away from their parental home in

order to place them in institutions. 8 Hale’s seminal text on Provision for the Poor accused poor

parents of: “unavoidably bring[ing] up their Children either in a Trade of Begging or Stealing, or

such Idle course, which again they propagate over to their Children, and so there is a successive

multiplication of hurtful or at least unprofitable People, neither capable of Discipline nor

beneficial Imployment.”9 We can see Hale’s views echoed by John Cary, a founder of the

Bristol workhouse, which itself served as a model for many of the large Corporations for the

Poor erected in the first decades of the eighteenth century. Cary exhibited a consistently                                                                                                                          6 Richard Haines makes specific reference to the success of the workhouse set up by Thomas Firmin in his proposal. One of the possible objections that he foresees his readers making, is that the “Hospitals” will be confused and impractical in their business if they take in those who have their own families to maintain. Haines clarifies that the hospitals are only “for the relief of those oppressed Parents, Families and Parishes” by taking off their young Children and single people who have neither Habitation nor Parish willing to receive them, and these are only to be confined to the house until they can earn their own living. In the “working alms-houses” Haines proposed to set up in 1677, “the distracting cares of poor honest Parents, oft occasioned by a foresight of their incapacity to provide for their children, will be removed; so that they may pass their time in peace…”6 Provision for the poor, or, Reasons for the erecting of a working-hospital in every county (London, 1678).

7 See Tim Hitchcock, ‘Paupers and preachers: the SPCK and the parochial workhouse movement’, in Lee Davison, Tim Hitchcock, Tim Jerin and Robert B. Shoemaker, Stilling the Grumbling Hive (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1992), pp. 145-166. 8 This hostility was also evident in statutory law, in an Act of 17 Geo. II, which stated “All persons who are idle and disorderly and who are able, but neglect or refuse to work or maintain themselves and their Families, may be prosecuted for such Offences…and upon conviction shall be punished in such Manner as idleness and disorderly persons are.” 9 Matthew Hale, A Discourse Touching Provision for the Poor (London, 1683). A5. Hale is particularly important because he was so often cited by early eighteenth-century writers as a sort of godfather of the workhouse movement. Thomas Troughear, The Best Way of Making our Charity Truly Beneficial to the Poor (London, 1730), 14. Shaw, “Tis true, the Cries of the Poor have piereced the Ears and Breasts of some of the greatest and best Men in the Kingdom; my Lord Hale in particular, whose Memory will descend with Veneration and Blessings to his latest Posterity, has taken the Pains to write a little Treatise on purpose on this Subject; and Sir Josiah Child has in his little Treatise of Trade, proposed Methods for the Relief of the Poor.” “Hales” is the first authority mentioned in The Laws Concerning the Poor (London, 1705), and he and Josiah Child are those prominently mentioned by Laurence Braddon in his 1719 proposal “An Abstract of a Draft of a Bill” (London, 1719), ii.

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confrontational relationship with the family lives of the poor in his publications from 1698-1718,

explaining, for example, that the Bristol workhouse:

First took in the girls, as recommended by the committee of the poor; But we had a great

deal of trouble with their Parents, and those who formerly kept them, who having lost the

sweetness of their Pay, did all they could to set both their Children and others against us;

but this was soon over.10

Most poor law reformers of the early eighteenth century shared such views, but Daniel Defoe

was one of the few voices from this period to take a purely antagonistic view of workhouses, and

a correspondingly supportive line on poor families. He identified workhouses, corporations and

charities employing the poor as serving to “the Ruin of the Families” of the poor (among their

many other dastardly effects). Defoe’s goal was for families to “live upon their own Labour”,

thereby keeping each family properly lodged in its own house.11

The contrast between a Firmin/Hartlib vs a Hale/Cary viewpoint was characteristic of

discussions on the workhouse all the way through the eighteenth century. Several important

initiatives in parliament and the press emphasized the potential of workhouses to help and

strengthen poor families overburdened with children, for example.12 In contrast, for those who

supported workhouses most wholeheartedly, like Thomas Alcock, the Earl of Hillsborough or Sir

Richard Lloyd, the institution’s abilities to take poor children out of the family home was still

central to their belief in its benefits in publications of the middle and later eighteenth century.13

But the opposition voiced by opponents of the workhouse also became stronger at the end of the

eighteenth century, and these writers focused not only on the demerits of the workhouse system

for individuals, but also on its pernicious effects on families. As David Eastwood has noted,

“The tendency for families to be broken up in workhouses excited widespread clerical

                                                                                                                         10 John Cary, An Essay Towards Regulating the Trade and Employing the Poor of this Kingdom (London, 1717), (BL 289.a.35), 148-153.

11 Daniel Defoe, Giving Alms, 9, 12-13. 12 William Hay, Remarks on the laws relating to the poor. With proposals for their better relief and employment. By a Member of Parliament. (1735). 13 Birmingham Guardians of the Poor, The present situation of the town of Birmingham, respecting its poor, considered. With, a proposal for building a new workhouse (Birmingham, 1782), 8. Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, Essays, political, economical, and philosophical. By Benjamin Count of Rumford (London, 1796 [1812]), Vol. 1.

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condemnation, and many magistrates’ hostility to the institutional degradation of the poor served,

if anything, to stiffen their support for outdoor allowances.”14 Indeed, we hear clear echoes of

the same debate in the heated arguments surrounding proposals for poor relief reform in

Parliament in the 1790s. When William Young proposed a bill to amend the workhouse test in

1795, he noted, “[H]e now proposed the repeal, as breaking the chain and system of the poor

laws, taking from the indigent their only solace of domestic society, and placing the industrious

and the dissolute equally under the tyranny of an overseer.”15 This much louder and broader set

of workhouse opponents highlighted not only their dislike of taking children out of the home, but

also their opposition to the use of workhouses for elderly parents and grandparents.16

Still, by the end of the eighteenth century, there was a broad middle ground of people who saw

some benefit to workhouses, but who were leery of their effects on families of the poor, and

these represent a continuation of the positive stance initiated by Firmin’s model in regards to the

interactions of poor families with workhouses. William Pitt, although generally a supporter of

generous out-relief to families, revealed a range of views in his parliamentary speeches and poor

law reform proposals.17 Pitt’s views, which he explicitly aligned with Locke and Hale, but

                                                                                                                         14 David Eastwood, Government and Community in the English Provinces, 1700-1870 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), 171. 15 Parliamentary Register, 40, 444. “Mr. Buxton seconded the motion. He said that he had been twenty years a Magistrate, and had found this act the greatest grievance in the exercise of his duty. The poor naturally looked up for relief to the country gentlemen, whom the law placed in the situation of magistrates, but in consequence of this act were prevented from being able to afford them any assistance. The Overseers refusal to give the poor the smallest succour, except they consented to go into their houses, for the supply of which they contracted with persons who engaged to furnish provisions at the cheapest rates, and which, of consequence, were very scantily and incompetently supplied. He stated several instances of the extreme hardship and inhumanity of the mode of treating the poor adopted under the present system.” Ibid.

16 An article on WORKHOUSE DISCIPLINE., Examiner (London: 1808), 544 (1818:May 31) p.345 tells the story of an old married couple forced to seek help in St Marylebone, and treated as if they had come into a Penitentiary. The author expresses particular outrage that they cannot be together, or even talk together; he says “economy” is the pretended motive for such harsh treatment, and that harsh regulations are not about regulating the poor, but instead are about people with hearts “incapable of sympathy” to treat others humanely. Another Letter to the Editor of the Examiner also abhors the workhouse rules that disallow visitors from bringing little comforts to an infirm and sickly friend in the wh. (WORKHOUSE RULES AND REGULATIONS., Examiner (London: 1808), 934 (1826:Jan. 1) p.6). The same author notices the governor of the workhouse conflates his workhouse rules with the Parliaments Prisons Act.

17 William Pitt, Heads of Mr. Pitt’s Speech, on the 12th of February, 1796, relative to the relief and maintenance of the poor, the encouragement of industry, and the diminution of the poor-rates (London: T.N. Longman, Paternoster-Row, 1797), e.g. p. 12.

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which actually most closely mirror publications by Samuel Hartlib’s circle and Thomas Firmin,

as Frederick Eden also noted, reserved his encouragement for poor law institutions to “schools of

industry” for children.18

This brief survey of views of reformers, politicians and writers on the poor laws, has allowed us

to see that concern over poor families was an important aspect of discussions of poverty and

welfare during the rise of the workhouse. Whether concerned primarily to reform poor families,

to remove children from the detrimental effects of impoverished parents, or to critique the

institutions, those who wrote about the utility of workhouses as institutions for the poor showed a

keen awareness of the perceived or potential impact of these houses of industry on the

households of the laboring poor.

Policy

Another symptom of the hostility towards families felt by many workhouse promoters was that

early legislation over workhouses allowed local overseers a tremendous amount of discretion

over the forced entry of the poor into workhouses. As Joseph Shaw explained in 1733 (though

citing an earlier source), “Overseers of the Poor are Judges of the Disability of Parents to

maintain their Children; and such as refuse to have their Children placed forth Apprentice, may

be bound over to the Sessions…. Dalt. 148, 153.”19 And whereas overseers needed the approval

of two JPs to apprentice children (because of the legal function of indentures), they did not

require any oversight at all by Justices in order to force poor families to allow the

institutionalization of their children. This was attacked by some commentators and reformers of

the poor laws at the end of the eighteenth century, but it was still explicitly allowed in drafts of

Thomas Gilbert’s Reform Bill of 1775.20

                                                                                                                         18 In summarizing Firmin’s pamphlet, Eden remarked: “Many of the following remarks are extremely judicious, and bespeak an intimate acquaintance with the subject he professes to investigate: and it will be obvious to all, whose leisure and curiosity may lead them to make the comparison, that his project for finding work for the Poor at home, forms the basis of a principal part of Mr. Pitt’s bill.” (I: 209) 19 Shaw, Parish Law, 199-200. 20 Sheila Lambert, Sessional Papers vol 31 Reports and Papers 1775-80 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1975), pp 1-9. (“1775: First Report from the committee. April 11 1775, presented by Sir Cecil Wray& others,

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Local vestries sometimes explicitly stated the policies that they were inclined to follow, and

these, too, could reveal deep hostility and mistrust towards poor families. Following the

November 1831 decision to call the “Committee to enquire respecting the management of the

Workhouse”, Terling (Essex)’s vestry explicitly reaffirmed the centrality of the workhouse as a

deterrent to parish assistance, and a cure for labour indiscipline, as we can see by the second

resolution of the committee: “That all Parishioners who are assisted by the Flour allowance be

informed, that upon being known to tipple, to neglect their work, otherwise injure their families,

or keep a dog without permission of the overseer, they will forefeit this privelege and be

transferred with their families to Workhouse discipline, food and clothing, and to work on the

Parish Account whenever the Overseer may think fit.” The vestry went further, precluding more

than a week’s worth of assistance for healthy, able-bodied labouring people, unless they were

willing to “be clothed in Parish dress and fed and lodged at the Parish charge.”21

Thus it seems that policy at both a national and local level could and did use the threat of

workhouse discipline as a method for keeping poor families in line. From removing poor

children from their family homes, to the temporary housing of the young of families

overburdened with children as a method of mending poor family finances, we find the existence

of a political will to use workhouses to manipulate the familial experience and response to

poverty.

Practice

Discussions in Parliament and the press appear to have focused on the workhouse’s role

in sundering family bonds (for better or worse). In the remainder of this essay, we will examine

actual workhouse practice in three highly disparate settings: the very large St Marylebone,

London workhouse, where admission records from 1769 to 1781 survive in abundant detail; the

small, rural parish of Terling, Essex, whose vestry minutes and overseers accounts allow us to

reconstruct the history of the parish workhouse from 1770-1834 (here, we will examine 1774-                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Report from the Committee Appointed to Review and Consider the Several Laws which concern the Relief and Settlement of the Poor; and the Laws relating to Vagrants; And also the State of the several Houses of Correction”).

21 For more on movements and societies to reform manners in the era see M.J.D. Roberts, Making English Morals: Voluntary Association and Moral Reform in England 1787-1886 (NY: CUP, 2004).

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1800); and the northern township of Ovenden, in the industrializing parish of Halifax, West

Yorkhire, which kept exceptionally detailed accounts of workhouse inmates from 1780-1825

(here, we will focus on the period up to 1800). The records from these parish workhouses reveal

a surprising fact: for many, especially those housed in non-urban institutions, workhouse

residence was a family affair.

If we look at the overall patterns of workhouse inmate families during this period, we find that,

in fact, a majority of those who inhabited the institutions in Terling and Ovenden, and a

significant minority of those in Marylebone, spent at least part of their time inside the house with

a family member. As Table 1 shows, over 10 per cent of the adults who entered Terling’s

workhouse came into the institution with at least one child, and almost 3 per cent of the total

came in with a complete nuclear family. The figures are even more startling for Ovenden, with

7 per cent of adults entering with children, and more than 11 per cent of all entrants with a

complete nuclear family. St Marylebone was more akin to Terling, with 7.7 per cent being

admitted with children (or having a child born after entry), and just under 3 per cent in nuclear

families. This reflects not a policy of maintaining families long-term in the workhouse, but rather

the workhouse’s service as a holding pen for those who would later be removed to their place of

settlement, or for those experiencing short-term crises related to health or provisions.

Table 1: Family status of workhouse inmates at Terling (1774-1800), Ovenden (1780-1800) and

St Marylebone, London (1769-1781)

Status Terling

# Terling

% Ovenden

# Ovenden

% Marylebone

# Marylebone

% Nuclear Family 3 2.7 29 11.3 155 2.7 W/Child(ren) 12 10.9 19 7.4 437 7.7 W/Father 0 0.0 1 0.4 7 0.1 W/Mother* 6 5.5 9 3.5 455 8.0 W/Mother&Sib(s) 17 15.5 26 10.2 360 6.3 W/Sibling(s) 9 8.2 23 9.0 239 4.2 W/Spouse 8 7.3 18 7.0 90 1.6 Alone 55 50.0 111 43.4 3950 69.2 Other family** 20 7.8 18 0.3 Total Inmates 110 100.0 256 100.0 5711 100.0

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* for Marylebone this includes children born in the house after the mother's entry **these include those with three generations present, uncles and aunts, with fathers and siblings, and unspecified relations Those with no or ambiguous information on family have been omitted

Even so, as we can see even more clearly when child inmates are separated out (Table 2), all

three workhouses exhibited a remarkable tendency to house more than one family member at a

time. Indeed, only 34 per cent of Ovenden’s child workhouse inmates experienced workhouse

life totally isolated from their families. Instead, children entered the workhouse with a parent in

over half of cases in Terling, and over 40 per cent of the time in both Marylebone and Ovenden.

Many of these children remained in the workhouse longer than their mothers (or, in rare cases,

fathers), but still it is notable that their introduction to the workhouse would have occurred as a

nuclear or sub-nuclear group, rather than as individuals.

Table 3: Family status of infant and child workhouse inmates in Terling, Ovenden and St

Marylebone, London

Status Terling

# Terling

% Ovenden

# Ovenden

% Marylebone

# Marylebone

% Nuclear Family 1 2.3 15 12.0 76 4.2 W/Child(ren) 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 W/Father 0 0.0 1 0.8 7 0.4 W/Mother 6 14.0 9 7.2 442 24.6 W/Mother&Sib(s) 15 34.9 28 22.4 344 19.1 W/Sibling(s) 8 18.6 22 17.6 208 11.6 W/Spouse 0 0.0 0 0.0 0 0.0 Alone 13 30.2 43 34.4 704 39.1 Other family 0 0.0 7 5.6 18 1.0 Total Inmates 43 100.0 125 100.0 1799 100.0

For periods of coverage and definitions see Table 1. ‘Children’ are those under 16 in Terling and

Ovenden and under 14 in St Marylebone. However the numbers of young people aged between 14 and 16

was generally too small to materially affect the comparison.

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Siblings were also available to soften the sense of separation from familiar hearth and home; 40

per cent of children had a co-resident brother or sister for at least part of their workhouse

residence in Ovenden, with over 50 per cent of children in Terling entering the workhouse with a

sibling (this includes those with mothers present as well). In Marylebone it was a somewhat

lower 30 per cent, which taken in conjunction with the slightly raised proportion of lone children

there, suggests a weaker link between the workhouse and family. Nonetheless, the majority of

children entered the house with at least one family member even here.

The elderly, however, had quite a different experience. For this group of paupers (see Table 3),

the workhouse was usually a place of isolation, entailing a separation from their homes, and from

their families. Still, a surprising number of older inmates entered the workhouse together with a

spouse. In Terling, 18.2 per cent of those over 60 came into the workhouse with a spouse, and in

Ovenden, the figure was even larger, with 15 of 55 elderly residents (27 per cent) entering with a

spouse. For a substantial minority of elderly residents in the parish, then, residence in a

workhouse was something that a couple fell into, rather than being precipitated by widowhood.

However, in St Marylebone, things were quite different: only just over 3 per cent of all elderly

inmates entered with a spouse, and instead lone entry was by far the most common experience.

In this parish, workhouse residence was not a family affair for the elderly.

Table 3: Family status of workhouse inmates aged 60+, Terling, Ovenden and St Marylebone, London

Status Terling

# Terling

% Ovenden

# Ovenden

% Marylebone

# Marylebone

% Nuclear Family 0 0.0 1 1.8 3 0.6 W/Child(ren) 0 0.0 1 1.8 6 1.1 W/Father 0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 W/Mother 0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 W/Mother&Sib(s) 0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 W/Sibling(s) 0 0.0 0.0 0 0.0 W/Spouse 6 18.2 15 27.3 17 3.2 Alone 27 81.8 34 61.8 495 94.1 Other family 4 7.3 3 0.6 Total Inmates 33 100.0 55 100.0 526 99.6

For periods of coverage and definitions see Table 1

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At times, the workhouse even accommodated family ties across three generations, as in Ovenden

in April 1818, when 70 year-old Betty Kershaw accompanied her 30 year-old daughter with her

three young grandchildren into the workhouse. This, however, was an unusual enough

occurrence that the clerk actually labeled the daughter as “child” underneath Betty in order to

mark their relationship, a highly irregular procedure.22 Indeed, there appear to have been only

four cases of grandparent-child relations entering the workhouse together in this period in

Ovenden. Three-generation families were equally unusual in Marylebone, but they do re-

emphasise the role of the workhouse in preserving family groups. One such family was a child,

mother and grandmother, all called Mary Browne, who entered the house in September 1774,

and all eloped together about four months later. They remained together, as all three re-entered in

November 1777, with the mother ill with fever, and the grandmother suffering from rheumatism.

In this case it was the grandmother and the child who were discharged together, but the mother

left shortly afterwards indicating the role of the workhouse in facilitating family relationships.

Analysing Practice

Thus far we have shown that workhouse inmates in these three quite different locations appear to

have benefited from local practice that kept families together to a surprising degree. But does

this appearance of family friendliness sustain further inquiry? We can dig deeper into the

sources that surround these three workhouses to get a better sense of the meaning of co-residence

(or the lack thereof) in all three places.

Because Terling’s workhouse was small, with all the inmates working together in one room, we

know that these families would have had daily contact during work and dining hours, even if

they were separated at night time. 23 Indeed, an inventory of 1781 shows that there were four

                                                                                                                         22 HAS 218

23ERO D/P 299/8/1. The original format of the inventory has been kept here.

13    

bedrooms in the house, none with more than four bedsteads. 24 As later use demonstrated, the

house was as suited for co-resident nuclear families as for dormitories for boys and girls. In this

respect, it was not unique for the region’s local workhouses. The house at Witham in Essex as

well, although it was larger, and did contain separate dormitory-style rooms for the men and

women in an inventory of 1790, also had several smaller rooms with furnishings for a few

paupers, and these were called nurseries, suggesting that perhaps families with young children

could live together.25

The data from Terling suggest that this rural workhouse also did not function primarily as a

severer of family ties, but rather had multiple uses for families. Whether through family choice,

or overseer preference, children seldom entered the workhouse alone, and they continued to have

contact with their parents during their stay. Because we have excellent longitudinal information

from Terling, thanks to its long run of complete overseers of the poor and vestry accounts, we

can also determine the reasons precipitating entry into its house, and the significance of family

crises in this regard. This allows us to improve our understanding of the parish paupers’ ability

to make instrumental use of the workhouse. Table 4 clearly demonstrates that family crises were

a main precipitant of entry into the workhouse throughout the period under consideration (the

‘FOC’ category).

                                                                                                                         24For other workhouse inventories see Tomkins, “The Experience of Urban Poverty,” pp. 124-128.

25 An Inventory of All the Household Furniture and Working Utensils at the Work House Chinmy [sic] Hills, Witham Essex taken the 1st day of October 1790” ERO D/P 30/18/1 in Witham Workhouse Papers – 200 loose sheets or bound in heavy paper very loosely

14    

Table 4. Precipitant to entry at Terling Workhouse, 1770-1799

Cause of Entry Number of

Entrants Old Age 16 Childbirth (parent) 2 Illegit. Childbirth (parent) 3 Sick 38 Insane 3 Spouse Sick 3 Widowed 13 Born (child) 2 Born (illeg.) 1 Family Overburdened with Children 23 Orphaned 6 Parent Sick 14 Parent Died 24 Unsp. 9 Total Entrants 157 Note: The categories were not used by overseers, but are the authors’ descriptive terms for the situations of the paupers who entered the house. Some inmates are counted twice, as they entered more than once, for different reasons each time.          

One thing that is apparent even at first glance at the table is the important role that the workhouse

played for families overburdened with children. Except for a brief period in the 1790s, when the

house was used primarily for the elderly, a large number of paupers were institutionalized

because there were too many children to support. Similarly, both old age and widowhood were

consistently seen as reasons for entry into the house. Table 4 also shows clearly that children

often entered the workhouse because they had been made vulnerable by a family crisis: sickness,

parental disease or insanity, or parental death. A fuller analysis of changes in these categories

over time (completed elsewhere) has shown that while the 1770s to 1790s witnessed the entry of

inmates because of individual or parental sickness or parental death, the factor of overly large

families replaced those precipitants in the workhouse during the first few decades of the

15    

nineteenth century. This reflects the changing use of smaller houses for different types of

paupers which was uncovered by Alannah Tomkins for York, Shrewsbury and Oxford.26

The data from Terling help us tell a different kind of story about the functioning of the local

workhouse than that which has dominated most narratives. But how idiosyncratic was this small,

agrarian, closed parish? Did other local workhouses also serve as stop-gap measures for families

suffering from such a range of nuclear hardships?

In Ovenden, the “indoor poor” were more likely than in Terling’s workhouse to have been

separated by age and sex. Ovenden’s workhouse inventories reveal a house that was more work-

focused and stereotypically institutional, with inmates apparently sleeping three or more to a bed

according to the 1763 inventory. The 1797 inventory (which included “Thumb Screws & Hand

Cufts,” as well as “Irons for Lunaticks”27), indicated that even sleeping rooms were places of

work, with cradles and cards, looms and dressers occupying the same small spaces in both the

Little and Great Chambers. Seventeen beds and sixteen sets of bedding served the sixty-two

individuals on the 1798 list of inmates. A likely scenario for the use of these beds, given the

existence of cradles in one of the rooms, would be that the one large dormitory was used for men

and boys, with the smaller rooms housing mothers with infants, and girls, with likely a separate

chamber for the sick.

Despite these contrasts, the overall story told by the data from Ovenden reflects a similar degree

of importance to inmates of family members in the northern parish as we found in Terling.

Although we cannot know the precipitating factors for entry into the workhouse at Ovenden in

the same way that we can for Terling, we do have some additional information on the fate of

children and young adults who left the workhouse because the accounts seem to consistently

indicate when children went out for an apprenticeship or service upon leaving the workhouse.

                                                                                                                         26 Alannah Tomkins, (2006) The experience of urban poverty, 1723-82 : parish, charity and credit (Manchester: Manchester University Press). The fuller analysis of Terling’s workhouse is in Ottaway, Workhouse: Emblem of the Eighteenth Century, forthcoming.

27Of course, we cannot know to what extent such instruments of punishment were actually used. The Tilehurst, Berkshire, vestry in 1781 dictated: “That on no Pretence whatever any Clog or Fetter to be fastened to the Limbs of any Person belonging to this House.” Perhaps Ovenden’s vestry had similar scruples. Steven W. Taylor, “Aspects of the Socio-Demographic History of Seven Berkshire Parishes in the Eighteenth Century” PhD thesis, University of Reading (1987), p. 374.

16    

Whereas 35 boys and girls left for an apprenticeship if they had other family members present

(of 272 children or young adults who had some family member(s) present for at least part of the

time in the house), 41 of those who lacked co-resident family members were put apprentice from

the workhouse (of 159 children or young adults without family members indicated in the house).

At first glance, this seems to indicate a more successful outcome for the workhouse’s lone

children, who achieved a service placement immediately on their removal from the house. This,

however, would be to misread the evidence of the disparate outcomes, which is likely to have

been a function of the age differences between those in the house with family members, which

averaged 5.9 years, in contrast to those in the workhouse without family members, who were an

average of 8.1 years old. Thus, the older a child was, the more likely he or she was to be on his

or her own in the workhouse, and therefore the more likely to end his or her incarceration with

an apprenticeship. In some cases this might have been an aim of seeking admission. Indeed, we

find children in other workhouses entering for a brief period a few months before leaving to start

an apprenticeship or service.28

Of course, the presence of family members might be assumed to be preferable to solitude, but

what evidence is there for the benefit of co-resident kin in the workhouse? Relatively few infant

deaths occurred in the Ovenden workhouse, especially in contrast to the massive institutions of

London. Of those who did die, there were 3 of 8 infants in the workhouse without family (at

least for part of the time), and 5 of 56 infants who died in the workhouse who had other family

members present with them. These numbers are too small to be of much statistical significance,

but it is certainly interesting that almost half of the lone infants died, while fewer than 10 per

cent of those with family did. Of 11 children (aged 2-15) who died in the workhouse, 6 (of 241 –

so 2.5 per cent) had some family members in the workhouse, and 5 (of 120 – so 4.2 per cent) had

none. Again, the figures here are too small to make much of the different mortality tolls, but it is

suggestive of better care for those children and infants who were joined by family members in

the workhouse. We have no comparable information from Terling, since there are almost no

child or infant deaths in the Terling workhouse (in part because of Terling’s use of a pesthouse

for those with infectious diseases29).

                                                                                                                         28 The Liberty of the Rolls workhouse is one example. Ottaway, Workhouse, forthcoming. 29 Although data from St Marylebone show that children rarely entered the workhouse because they were ill, so prior sickness may have made little difference to the risks of death. Instead those who died likely succumbed to infection

17    

What we do have from Terling is more consistent longitudinal data for the 1770s to 1790s about

the fate of family units from the time they entered to the time they left the workhouse. Of 32

children who entered the workhouse from 1770-1799 with at least one family member, 6 left

with that same family unit intact; 2 came in and left with the same family unit, only to come back

again and have that family unit severed (because of their mother’s insanity); 5 came in with a

family unit and then left with a partial family; and 19 of the 32 (59 per cent) left the workhouse

severed from the family unit with which they had entered. Still, these statistics are not really as

bleak as they look in terms of affective relationships. Of those 19 whose family connections

appear to have been ended by their workhouse residence, 3 were orphaned while in the

workhouse, and another 3 had a mother who went insane. Thus only 13 of the 32 children (40

per cent) can really be said to have experienced the rupturing of family bonds because of the

workhouse, and in some of these first-cited cases family choice may have played a part. This

result echoes the findings in the same period in Ovenden (though those data are a little harder to

interpret because of the inconsistency of recording departure from the house). An initial analysis

of the workhouse records shows that 23 of 34 families who entered the workhouse between 1780

and 1800 left the workhouse ‘intact’. Of those who did not leave together, most had their

children leave the workhouse at different times than parents because the children were older and

were put out to apprentice shortly after they entered. It was very rare for families with young

children to leave those children in the workhouse without the presence of a parent.30 These data

suggest that families were short-term, crisis oriented residents of the workhouse, and that

workhouses did not necessarily rupture family units.

St Marylebone’s registers of admissions also recorded reasons for entry to their workhouse,

although they were not as informative as those in Terling on the role of children in precipitating

poverty. In fact, as is shown in Table 5 the most commonly noted reason was simply ‘poor’ (42.1

per cent). This was even more common among child paupers or those with children: 72 per cent,

which may correspond with the large proportion categorised as overburdened with children in

Terling. The second most common reason, however, was illness of some sort, indicating that this

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       inside the house or failed to thrive (especially if their mothers were not present). For more details see Levene, The childhood of the poor. 30 The Ovenden figures are only for those families who could be identified as such, and for whom the dates for their entry, and type of exit were noted. Some families may thus be missed, but even so, the records seem to indicate that when families went into the workhouse together, they tended to emerge together, shortly thereafter. HAS 218.

18    

institution was heavily specialised in medical care. 8 per cent of entrants sought admission

because of pregnancy, but overall, poverty or ill-health were far more likely precipitants to entry.

This again, shifts attention away from questions to do with family bonds in this workhouse

despite the large proportion of entrants who were in family units.

Table 5: Most common reasons for entering the St Marylebone Workhouse, 1769-1781

# %

Poor 2267 42.1

Sick 1709 31.7

Pregnancy* 418 7.8

Decline 119 2.2

Infirm** 114 2.1

Insane/weak mind 111 2.1

No (useful) information 86 1.6

Injured 81 1.5

Cold 79 1.5

From nurse 63 1.2

Deserted by parents/orphan 61 1.1

Total 5108 94.8

*This includes those in labour, who had lately lain in, or who had miscarried

**This includes associated categories such as lame, rheumatism, blind, aged

We should not, however, overlook the significance of the workhouse for family relations and the

management of poverty in this parish. One way to expand the discussion is to turn to an aspect

of parish welfare which was particularly well developed in London in the later eighteenth

century: paid country nursing. This had long been used by parish officers in an ad-hoc way to

cater for children whose mothers had died or were not present. However from 1767 metropolitan

parishes within the Bills of Mortality were required by law to send children under the age of six

19    

to be cared for by women outside the city.31 This was a measure called for by philanthropist and

reformer Jonas Hanway as an answer to the scandalously high levels of mortality he found

among child inmates in London workhouses. Yet Hanway did not seem to have intended that it

supplant familial bonds for young dependents. Rather, as he wrote in 1760 in the context of the

London Foundling Hospital which was the model for the scheme,

To preserve life is the immediate end of our pursuit: but if the total separation of children

from parents is an indispensible condition of it, perhaps it may be better that fewer should

live, and possess their lives in comfort and honor, than a greater number be bred, upon a

principle so dubiously consistent with happiness.32

However, this was not written into the terms of the Act, and it was left to the discretion of parish

officers as to how they treated children whose mothers were present with them. Although

actually outside the Bills of Mortality, St Marylebone implemented the terms of the Act on

nursing, giving us an important insight into the way that familial bonds were treated by

workhouse officers.

Placements with nurses were recorded as a mode of exit from the workhouse, so the scale and

characteristics of the system can be assessed from the registers. The first thing to note is that

although nursing was a common experience of workhouse children in this parish, it was not the

majority one: 12 per cent of those entering in the period covered here were sent to a nurse. It was

more likely for babies and young children, as might be expected; 19 per cent of those aged 5 and

under, and 22 per cent of babies under 1 year. However, this did not always represent a breaking

of familial bonds as just over half of all the nursed children did not have either parent present in

the house. Either they were completely alone, or they had been sent in by parents or guardians

while they remained outside. In the remaining cases, however, the child did have family present

with them and were separated to be sent to a nurse, suggesting that the policy on severing

familial bonds reviewed above was fairly frequently played out in practice.                                                                                                                          31 Jonas Hanway (1766) An earnest appeal for mercy to the children of the poor, p.-iv; ). See also M. Dorothy George (1927) London life in the eighteenth century (Harmondsworth: Penguin), pp. 58-60. A. Levene, The childhood of the poor: welfare in eighteenth-century London (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2012). 32 Jonas Hanway (1760) A candid historical account of the hospital for the reception of exposed and deserted young

children, 2nd edn p. 50.

20    

A closer examination of the records, however, suggests that this would be a mis-representation.

For one thing, children were rarely sent out immediately to a nurse, but instead remained in the

house for some time first. It seems likely that this corresponded to the time that their parent/s

were present, suggesting that the link between parents and children was being accommodated.

The average time elapsing between entry (or birth) and discharge to a nurse was 67 days, and this

was almost exactly the same for those born in the house (61 days). However, more persuasive

still is the fact that children were rarely sent to a nurse while their parent stayed in the institution;

instead the parent had in most cases already departed; a marked contrast to the situation found in

Terling. It is difficult to interpret whether this was an instrumental use of the workhouse for

childcare by parents, or whether it represented parish officials insisting that children remained

while parents sought work outside. The two interpretations clearly have quite different outcomes

for our view of family life and the workhouse. However what is clear is that the St Marylebone

workhouse officers did not enforce the rupture of family bonds especially between mothrs and

young children while all were still under their care. Families –albeit rarely nuclear ones – were

able to exit the house as a unit, while others may have chosen to undergo a temporary separation

while they tried to recover their independence. The role of the workhouse in causing or

facilitating family configurations is thus a complex one.

This apparent sympathy to the bonds of parents and dependent children did not necessarily

translate into shared space inside the house, however. As at Ovenden, there was segregation by

both age and sex, and children were routinely separated from parents at least for sleeping

accommodation. The provision of schooling also meant that part of their days would have been

spent apart from their parents although perhaps still with siblings. This specialisation of space

was enhanced when the parish opened a new workhouse in 1776, and at this stage wards were

also given more descriptive names in the registers. From this stage we are able to see that almost

all child inmates were placed in specialist accommodation of some sort, either by function or

age: in boys’ and girls’ wards, in the lying-in ward or in the infirmary.33 Those in the two latter

wards were almost always very young, and accompanying parents (usually mothers) who were

either sick or who about to give birth. Given the sex segregation of the adult wards it seems

highly unlikely that the housing policy accommodated spouses together either. This is probably

                                                                                                                         33 For more details see Levene, ‘Children, childhood and the workhouse’.

21    

the clearest evidence we have of a policy towards the family bonds of the indoor poor, and

indicates that separation either for discipline or work, was paramount in this London workhouse.

There is also some slight evidence for the way that families themselves were able to use the

workhouse. The workhouse committee in the Liberty of the Rolls (City of London), for example,

kept track for a few years of those who petitioned them, along with their responses. As Table 6

shows, in many cases, an intermediary requested assistance for another person. What is striking,

here, is that while most of the intermediaries for the poor were successful in getting assistance,

those who petitioned for themselves were refused, “passed” (to another parish) or “referred” (to

the overseers’ discretion) more than half of the time. This slight but suggestive body of evidence

shows us one workhouse committee’s seeming respect for the family ties of the poor.

22    

Table 6: Applications to the Workhouse Committee, Liberty of the Rolls, 1820

Petitioner Admitted Granted

Granted short-term Passed Referred

Referred/small sum Refused

Refused/small sum Unspecified

Family of origin 1 8 1 5 1 2 Nuclear family 2 13 1 3 1 1 1 Non-kin 1 3 1 Vestry 1 0 0 No intermediary 2 41 3 23 26 1 4

23    

Indeed, other anecdotal evidence from the Liberty’s accounts reveals more of the texture of these

interactions. The frequency with which family members applied to get their nuclear kin admitted

into the workhouse is both surprising and revealing. Such a phenomenon demands that we

recalibrate our thinking of the workhouse as a predominantly punitive institution and instead

consider it as, for some paupers and in some circumstances, a desirable option. How else can we

account for the actions of “Ramsey” who “applied to have his son taken into the House” in

January 1801 (refused); or of Elizabeth Pinkerman who applied to have her husband admitted

into the House in November 1800.34 Such incidents should not be overstated, however, because

at the same time, there were definitely cases where children, especially, were taken into the

house, or separated from their mothers, against the intentions of their parents. Thus when Mary

Pyke applied for relief for herself and her children in October 1800, the overseer ordered that her

eldest child be taken into the House.35 When Samuel Whitehead “applied for the Child at Nurse

at Norwood (6 years Old) on being allowed 3s/ per Week” in October 1801, he was “Refused.”

Some parents appear to have negotiated with the workhouse committee for their own ends. Mrs

Boucher, for example, went to the workhouse committee in 1820 with a proposal to take two of

her children out of the workhouse and maintain them with an allowance of 3s. each. When the

parish returned that they wanted her to take all three children out of the house and maintain them

for 7s. weekly, the parties “did not agree.”And at other times, it was clearly the parent’s wish to

put the child out to someone else, as was the case in June 1817, when Mary Hobson applied to

have her illegitimate child “sent to nurse by the Liberty so that she may go to service”, a request

that was readily granted. This also lends credence to the suggestion that apprenticeship, and

perhaps also schooling, could be seen as positive advantages of contact with the workhouse.36 It

is not always clear why some requests were granted while others were not. We must conclude

that the individual circumstances of the case played an important part, as well as the character of

the family.

                                                                                                                         34 Another wife who asked for her husband to be taken into the workhouse was Martha Swaine “Husband very ill – applies for him to be admitted into the house - -Ordered” in January 1810. The roles were reversed in May 1810 when “William Profser applies for assistance his wife being in the Workhouse ... Mr Profser being called in...Ordered that she be at Liberty to leave the house when she pleases.” 35 1 April 1807 “Mary Elgerton called down[.] she to leave the House by Saturday week and nurse to have her Child.” 36 For similar examples of negotiation between parents and workhouse officers see Levene, The childhood of the poor.

24    

Conclusions

This analysis of the workhouse records from three quite different parishes has revealed some

important revisions to our image of the eighteenth-century workhouse. In particular, it has

highlighted the role of these institutions in preserving family bonds in many cases. In the small,

rural parish of Terling, the large industrializing parish of Ovenden, and the sprawling

metropolitan area of St Marylebone, a large proportion of workhouse inmates were present with

siblings, parents and spouses. This is in marked contrast with the tendency among many of those

influencing policy, to treat the workhouse as a place of incarceration and separation from family

members. Indeed, when we look closely at the functioning of these workhouses, we can see the

many ways in which they mirrored most closely the goals of reformers from Firmin to Pitt who

recognized the potential of such houses of industry to assist, rather than merely to sever, poor

families. More generally, the approach taken here reminds us that eighteenth-century

workhouses were not all about working-age adults; dependents were frequently present as well.

Despite these similarities, the analysis also flags up some local differences. Just as we were able

to put the theories of poor law reformers on a spectrum of hostility to support of poor families,

so, too, can we see our workhouses falling along similar lines in terms of the methods of

handling individuals vs. families. This is not to say, of course, that we can uncover the

intentions of local poor law authorities in the same way that we can those who wrote on the poor

laws. Nonetheless, among these the most prominent disparities we find is the greater presence of

solitaries in the St Marylebone house compared with the other two locales, especially among

adults but also to a lesser degree among children. Equally striking is the much lower presence of

nuclear families in this institution than in either Terling or Ovenden. This likely relates to local

patterns of employment and mortality; high metropolitan adult death rates made family

fragmentation more likely, while seasonal and casual labour markets made unemployement a

more pressing concern. However, we should not rule out the possibility of different local policies

in the use of the house. London made particularly heavy use of indoor relief, delivering over half

of all parish welfare in indoor form, but this is not to say that it did not prioritise certain types of

paupers for admission. As we saw in the examples from the Liberty of the Rolls, cases were

frequently judged on individual merits, and at times local houses might choose to specialise in

the care of the sick or the elderly. Taken together, however, the evidence from these three

25    

parishes indicates a range of ways in which the workhouse did support the family bonds of the

poor and their dependents.