I have been looking up a few facts about a typical Victorian workhouse.
A typical workhouse would contain around 200 inmates but larger ones could contain upto 1000 inmates.
There crime for being there?
They were just poor.
In a workhouse the people who ran them were.
1-The Master,2-The mistress the Masters wife,3-Matron,4-Medical Staff,5-Officers,6-Inmates.
The whole place had to obide by a bell.
The bell would ring to organise Inmates and Staff to the daily timetable which was.
6.45am Get Up,7.00am Breakfast,8.00am Goto Work,11.45 Stop Work,12.00 Dinner,13.00 Back To Work,17.00 Finish Work,17.30 Tea,20.00 Bed.
The inmates did not work at week ends unless they had to help in the Kitchens,Laundry or Infirmary.
All of the inmates had to work unless they were ill,sick or old people.
They worked without pay and they got a roof over there head and 3 meals a day.
Alot of inmates had never seen money before but a lucky few might have a friend on the outside to send a couple of coins in a year.
Most of the men worked outside in the vast gardens the size of the gardens were roughly 4 to 5 Acres.
These gardens produced all the fruit and vegetables the workhouse would need.
Water was pumped up from a well by hand and there was often a group of 5 to 10 inmate men taking it in turns to manually pump the water all day everyday.
The women worked in the kitchen,laundry or sewing rooms.
Plus cleaning or helping in the medical rooms.
In The Nursery Children were looked after by there mothers.
These mothers were all single women who had delivered there babies in the workhouse maternity ward.
The mothers were not permitted to leave the workhouse grounds and they could only venture outside when they could take there baby with them.
Local rules stated a child must be 5 years old to go outside in a workhouse so some women stayed inside for years.
In a workhouse Men were split up from women,Mothers split up from children.
Whole family's split up from each other and they would be severly punished for trying to talk to each other.
The Staff only had 2 weeks holiday a year and 2 or 3 meals a day.
Most staff finished their shift and then stayed on the premises just incase they were needed.
Salaries for working in the workhouse were around 50 pounds per year.
This particular workhouse was built in 1838.
Bright red bricks and grey slate roof.
It had a central point with 4 walkways like a cross and a large outer wall like a circle round the outside.
From above it would of looked like a wheel.
Behind the main building was the infirmary.
Between these were open yards where the linen would dry and in the other yards the inmates planted flowers and made benches to sit on.
Inside the house the walls were painted bricks and the floors were solid stone.
Most lower rooms had small square windows up high making the rooms feel dark and cold.
The furniture was just as bleak.
Mattresses were made of prickly straw.
In a couple of day rooms there were however open fires with rag rugs on the floor.
Some local people gave a handful of books the inmates and visitors could read in the day rooms.
Washing facilities were terrible,Big wash tubs filled with ice cold water. Inmates were only allowed 1 bath with hot water a week.
The infirmary was slightly better equipped and was near the standard for a normal hospital at the time.
The wards seemed quite bright with large windows looking over the lush green gardens to the front.
Each ward had 12 beds and 1 coal fire.
The strange thing was the maternity ward was housed in the main building next to the officers quarters not in the hospital wing.
This was so the officers could keep and eye on the single mothers.
Food in the infirmary was Breakfast Porridge,Dinner 6 days a week would be meat,soup or fish and vegetables.
Once a week there would be bread and cheese. Big Mugs of tea would be served after a meal sometimes with a slice of bread and butter and with a slice of cake on a Sunday.
The officers had a cooked breakfast everyday.
Visits were only allowed on a Sunday but they were few and far between.
If an inmate was sick and on the danger list a messenger would be sent to tell the inmates family. If the inmate did die,the relatives would be given the opportunity to arrange the funeral but this very rarely happened due to cost.
When this happened the master would arrange the funeral.Sometimes the master would try and arrange it near where the person was from but mostly these were held in the workhouse chapel.
Nobody ever went to a funeral in the workhouse.
Rattle his bones,Over the stones,he's only a pauper who nobody owns.
Everything was lonely.
Even Death.
I for one count myself lucky i didn't have to live in a workhouse.
Imagine the horrors these people saw through no fault of there own.
The single mothers raped by the officers.
The children whose childhoods were ruined and haunted by what they had seen and the memories places like these caused.
I know they had food and water but to punish these people for nothing and destroying families was wrong.