Workhouses emerged in the early 17th century, as a solution to the ever growing burden of caring for a parish’s poor. The institutions that resulted were notorious for cruel, hard rules, but when people were desperate and had nowhere else to go, the workhouse was the last safe haven, a place offering food, warmth and shelter in return for work.
The Poor Law of 1601 required parishes to fund assistance for their poor. The earliest workhouse on record was erected in 1631 in Abingdon, to give people unable to support themselves work and accommodation. Parallel to that, a system of Outdoor Relief provided assistance in the form of money, food, clothing or goods to help people in poverty, without the requirement for them to enter an institution. Sometimes they would also receive help finding paid work.
However, as word spread of the availability of funds to help the poor, the number of claimants for Outdoor Relief increased. As time went by it started to get unaffordable, especially when many agricultural workers were replaced by machines. There was mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, and by the early 1830s the poor relief system was unsustainable.
The Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 abolished Outdoor Relief, so those seeking assistance had to enter their local workhouse, or they would receive nothing. The authorities thought the new system would bring down the cost of poor relief, and hoped it might make a small profit by exploiting the labour of inmates. Jobs provided included breaking stones for building materials, and crushing bones for fertiliser.
Men were given heavy work, while women did cleaning, oakum picking, laundry or kitchen work, or nursing. Elderly inmates may have been tasked with making clothes and spinning wool. Children who weren’t in school may have been trained for domestic service. Some workhouses had
