http://research.ncl.ac.uk/pauperlives/

Workhouse plan

Project devised to go in stages

• Stage 1 Enter base population data

• This means all the individuals admitted into the workhouse 1725-1824

• All those receiving regular pensions

• Stage 2 Link extant settlement examination records to base population

• Stage 3 Create and refine individual ‘pauper biographies’

Stages 1&2 completion!

•103,610 separate records of individual admissions and/ or discharges (86,446 excluding duplicates). C. 56,000 individuals

•C. 14,000 settlement examinations

•Covering years 1725-1824

•‘Mind-numbing tedium’ of data entry

•Advantages of very large sample sizes

Methodological issues•Elimination of duplicate entries

•One short gap in the admission registers

•Creation of reasonably complex relational database

•Nominal linkage issues – individuals can be identified from their given forename and surname, age, and record of numbers of times admitted

•Reconstructing a ‘total history’ of pauperism presents particular challenges in the capital

Total history?

•Aim is to complete individual life histories

•Within the parochial context, individuals could have contact with workhouse, overseers of the poor or churchwardens over a period of time

•That is, they could enter the workhouse, receive extraordinary relief or get a pension from the overseers, or receive charitable handouts from funds distributed by the churchwardens. The churchwardens also ran the parish almshouses.

•It is important to realise that this paper deals with the paupers who entered the workhouse. Such paupers may also have had contact with other arms of parish poor relief

•This point of course holds for all parochial studies of parish poor relief, especially if made after the 1723 Workhouse test act

London workhouses: anticipation of New Poor Law?

St Martin’s workhouse was the third biggest in terms of ‘capacity’ in the

London area in 1803

Number of workhouse inmates 1803 %

1- 100 22

101-200 28

201-300 16

301-400 12

401-500 8

500+ 14

Total workhouses outside City within the walls

50

Anticipation of 1834 commissioners:Meticulous record keeping

Insistence on work by indoor poor capable of working, even elderly.Segregated wards in 18th century.

Regular (weekly) attendance of magistrateUse of punishment room (‘dust house’)

Regular inspection and expulsion of inmates.Professional staff, working to (fairly) strict rules

Poor relief expenditure over £10,000 p.a. in 1780s (=c. £12,500 in 1850 prices)

Also familiar post-1834 conditions:Large number of deserving poor – children, old

Increasing use of workhouse as ‘hospital’ from later 18C.Professionalisation of medical help:

Midwives, doctors who knew about insanity.Health condition of the short-term residents?

  Total %

Not admitted before 24939 26.4

1 28637 30.3

2 15151 16.0

3 7403 7.8

4 4464 4.7

5 2937 3.1

6 2141 2.3

7 1555 1.6

8 1152 1.2

9 927 1.0

10 797 0.8

11-20 3197 3.4

21-30 897 0.9

31-40 284 0.3

41-50 72 0.1

51+ 33 0.0

  94586 100.0

Number of recorded times admitted

Age 15-39 as % of total workhouse population

Age 15-39 as % of total, M&F, all ages

0.05.010.015.020.025.030.035.040.0

1721-30

1731-40

1741-50

1751-60

1761-70

1771-80

1781-90

1791-1800

1801-1810

1811-1820

1821-1824

female

male

Percentage of times admitted

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51+

Number of times admitted

Recidivists?

Total discharges to hospitals and private medical institutions from St Martin's workhouse

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1726 1731 1736 1741 1746 1751 1756 1761 1766 1771 1776 1781 1786 1791 1796 1801 1806 1811 1816 1821

Discharges to hospital by year

5 per. Mov. Avg. (Discharges to hospital by year)

Percentage interval between death of husband and date of settlement examination of elderly widows in St Martin's

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

110

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49

Percentage women examinedsince death of husband

Yearly interval between husband’s death and examination

Life cycle crises and applications for welfare

• Workhouse multi-functional over entire period• Part of elderly survival strategy in last years• There is a chronology of use by elderly, more

commonly used in some decades than others• Particularly frequently experienced by elderly

females• Variety of experience of elderly usage