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Puddle Duck
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16-02-2017, 02:57 PM
1

Workhouses

Before the Welfare System, the history of the workhouse showed a place of despair .

Some gave assistance others gave medical treatment.

Families separated in to different quarters , others never managed to escape from them.

Men volunteering themselves into the workhouses as a last resort.

Desperate times, but they served a purpose for many.

Do you think things could have been better in those times and has anyone got knowledge or history about workhouses they'd like to share ?

They seemed to be far and wide and it would be interesting how many went through the system and died in the same place, probably with a paupers grave, or thrown into a river !
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16-02-2017, 03:02 PM
2

Re: Workhouses

All I really know is right until her death my nan had nightmares about her childhood in one, that was enough to make me think they were a terrible thing. She left at 15 they sent her to work in a big house outside Hastings, met my grandad and never went back. But those dreams were terrible.
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Puddle Duck
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16-02-2017, 03:07 PM
3

Re: Workhouses

This link seems to give an overall picture, but what really went on inside, I bet we'll never truly know.


http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/poorlaw/condwkhs.htm
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16-02-2017, 03:12 PM
4

Re: Workhouses

I do family History and Ive not found any in the Work house ,even when a family lost their parents .
They were taken in by Neighbours even though they had Grand parents and Uncles /Aunts .

There is History web sites that you could research on Work Houses .

Ive found lots in my family history that have Paupers Graves ,even went and visited one just last month , and they were not in the Work House .
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16-02-2017, 03:46 PM
5

Re: Workhouses

My Great Uncle died in the workhouse - although by that time it was more or less changed into a hospital for the poor.
He had had a sad life - mother dead young , harsh father ( although probably not by the standards of the time.) gassed in WW1 and then after coming back to poverty and low employment he took to the road wandering here and there looking for work. Eventually coming back to his home town in the north of england where he died.
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16-02-2017, 04:14 PM
6

Re: Workhouses

I know of several hospitals which began life as workhouses which, I suppose, makes you wonder whether those hospitals would ever have existed if it hadn't been for the pre-existing workhouses.

I can see how workhouses would have provided some sort of safety-net for people who would otherwise have died. On the other hand, I have never really understood the need to break up and separate families.

Even if they were obliged to sleep in separate quarters, why couldn't they at least have been allowed to meet with each other for non-working hours?
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16-02-2017, 04:18 PM
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Re: Workhouses

OH's family were in the workhouse.
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/StOlave/

Two of them were there only one day. Presumably found work somewhere in service but his great great grandmother died there, I think it was because she had dementia and was admitted to the infirmery. Her cause of death is listed as bronchitus and senile dementia.
Of course he never knew any of thses family members but just finding out how desperate they had been made him very upset.
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16-02-2017, 04:23 PM
8

Re: Workhouses

I don't know if any of my family had personal experience of the workhouse, but I do know that the threat of the workhouse cast a long shadow over people of my grandparents' generation. The workhouse was the one thing my grandparents truly feared - even though they had ceased to exist a decade or more before I was born. The memory of those hideous places was still fresh in the memories of those who had heard the stories of what went on in them, or who had experienced it themselves. My grannie worked in a factory well into her 80's and claimed that she carried on working because she didn't want to end up in the workhouse.
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16-02-2017, 04:27 PM
9

Re: Workhouses

It was drummed into me by my great aunt who looked after me as a small child that you never borrow money, live beyond your means and be prepared to work hard to avoid the Workhouse which she considered to be a fate worse than death.

A good lesson there for today's population many of whom seem to live on credit.
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16-02-2017, 06:00 PM
10

Re: Workhouses

Its good that we now live in a kinder society .
 
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