Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (64 page)

Admission to a workhouse would be granted after the individual had been interviewed either by the Relieving Officer or, in cases of emergency, by the Workhouse Master and authorized by the Board of Guardians. Upon entry the individual would have a medical examination, be stripped and bathed and given a workhouse uniform. Men and women would be separated (including married couples) and had to live in separate quarters, sleeping in large dormitories. Their daily routine was strictly regimented by the Poor Law Commissioners, including waking and sleeping times, meal times and working hours. The work involved was mainly helping run the workhouse itself, with women doing more domestic tasks and men working on menial labouring. Punishments meted out to inmates who broke the strict rules varied in harshness; lesser offences were punished by withdrawing food luxuries (such as cheese or tea) while more serious offences could result in inmates being whipped or sent to solitary confinement or prison. Over the course of the nineteenth century, however, conditions in the workhouses became less harsh and regimented.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the use of workhouses declined. Guardians were more willing to give ‘outdoor relief' as it was more cost effective and less cruel. In 1929 the institutions were abolished as new social legislation provided other means for assisting the poor and needy, although the Poor Law Amendment Act itself was not abolished until 1948. The buildings themselves were sometimes used for other institutions including, in many cases, hospitals and schools.

Workhouses became a more popular method for parishes to deal with their poor during the eighteenth century. The workhouse became institutionalized in 1834 with the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act; henceforth, workhouses would be the only option for able-bodied individuals seeking poor relief. Parishes were grouped together to form Poor Law Unions and a new body was created to deal with the administration of the workhouse, the Board of Guardians.

You may discover that your ancestor was in a workhouse by obtaining their civil registration death certificate (or, worse, their birth certificate). Additionally, as workhouses were used mostly in the nineteenth century, census returns would also detail if your ancestor was residing in one. If you wish to trace an ancestor who was admitted into a workhouse you need to establish which Poor Law Union the parish your ancestor resided in belonged to. This can be done by referring to the
appropriate guide to their location published by the Federation of Family History Societies (and listed in the suggestions for further reading at the end of this chapter). These guides detail what records survive and for what dates for each union. The records themselves will be in local county record offices as part of the collection of the Board of Guardians of the workhouses. The local family history society may have produced indexes to some of these records and it is worthwhile checking this.

The main sets of workhouse records retained by local archives include:

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Admission and Discharge Books:
This should include the name, age, residence (including parish of settlement) and occupation of the pauper. The books should also detail the circumstances surrounding the need of relief. Unfortunately, these books are rarely indexed.

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Creed Registers:
These list the religious denomination of the individual. They are arranged alphabetically by first name and then by date of entry into the workhouse. The entry may also include date of discharge.

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Registers of baptisms, births and deaths:
Guardians would note all these events in their registers, although recording burials was less common.

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Records of Relieving Officers:
Relieving officers would interview and decide whether to admit an individual to the workhouse or to provide ‘outdoor relief'. The surviving records for the latter can give a good background to the personal circumstances of that person.

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Poor Law Union records:
Miscellaneous set of records that may include correspondence and minutes of the guardians of the workhouse. Administration records for the workhouses may also survive (including books detailing expenditure, rates and punishment of inmates). The system of making children apprentices continued, and records of such activities may survive. Additionally, the new guardians continued to sponsor the emigration of paupers, and documentation relating to this may also survive.

As with many other topics it is also worthwhile consulting local newspapers as they would often report the weekly meetings of the Board of Guardians and what the guardians recommended for individuals.

Jeremy Paxman stumbled across various examples of poverty whilst researching his family tree – not just among his Paxman forebears in Framlingham, in the heart of rural Suffolk, but also in his maternal lineage in turn-of-the-century Glasgow.

The Suffolk Paxmans were victims of the Industrial Revolution, as Jeremy discovered once he'd pushed his family tree back to the early nineteenth century by combining certificates, census returns and – eventually – parish records. Generation after generation had Yorkshire roots, until he found one family whose head, Thomas, was born in Framlingham, Suffolk, and from the places of birth listed on the 1851 census it seems he had then moved to the North West before migrating across to Yorkshire. Having obtained important geographical clues as to the rural origins of his family, Jeremy visited the county record office to discover more.

From census returns, it was apparent that Thomas Paxman had earned a living as a cobbler, but on reading about the social and economic conditions in Suffolk at the time Thomas was bringing up his family in the 1830s, Jeremy discovered that work was scarce and many people who could not support themselves on the land or through paid employment were facing starvation. Documents revealed that the local parish councils set up a repatriation scheme, and offered to pay for people to leave the area and find their fortune in the newly emerging industrial towns – a lifeline that Thomas gratefully seized.

Yet, as Jeremy found out when he researched his maternal line, poverty was not just confined to the countryside. His maternal 2 x great-grandfather, John McKay, had served with the Royal Artillery – his Army records were located at The National Archives, Kew; but on discharge in 1891 he moved to Glasgow where he lived with his wife, Mary, and nine children, working as a school caretaker – but on checking the surviving school records, Jeremy discovered that John had died in 1894. Since John had not served long enough, Mary did not qualify for an Army pension, and without any further means to support the family she had to apply for poor relief.

Jeremy discovered documents at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, which revealed that Mary's application was turned down because two children that she claimed were John's were actually born after he had died – and were therefore illegitimate. On these grounds, the parish council refused to grant her aid. To get a better idea of the conditions she had to face on a daily basis, Jeremy tracked down the tenement where Mary was forced to raise her family in cramped, squalid conditions and very little money. No wonder he was moved by what he saw.

Scotland passed a series of laws from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries to legislate for the relief of the poor, mainly as a means of dealing with beggars. Only a small number of relevant records survive to the present day. Records begin when parishes became responsible for helping the poor. This occurred following the Reformation and responsibility fell on the Kirk and the local landowners (known as heritors). The Kirk would raise revenue to support the poor by fines and charging for conducting its pastoral functions (baptisms and marriages, etc.). Records for these can be found in the general records of the meetings of the Kirks and Heritors. These can be found at the National Archives of Scotland under NAS references HR (Heritors) and CH 2 (Kirk).

A Poor Law Amendment Act was passed in Scotland too, in 1845, which significantly changed the nature of poor relief. The Act ensured that the government would now be responsible for poor relief and established parochial boards that would administer poor relief. These boards would create rolls listing the support they gave individual paupers and would provide significant details on these individuals (including age, place of birth and details of next of kin). These rolls are now held either in local county record offices or at the National Archives of Scotland. The National Archives holds records for some parishes in East Lothian, Midlothian and Wigtownshire. The rest will be found locally.

Until 1838 there was no systematic method of assisting the poor in Ireland. Poor relief was administered by religious institutes or private charities and was, therefore, dependent on donations. Such records as survive are scattered amongst a number of sources, mainly relating to the institutes or individuals that were donating. These may be found in church records or amongst the estate papers of donating landlords. Records may also survive of individual charitable organizations in local archives.

The workhouse system was introduced into Ireland in 1838 with the establishment of 137 Poor Law Unions in a similar fashion as in England. Initially only ‘indoor relief' would be granted to those seeking help. However, the Great Famine of 1845 to 1851 created a huge increase
in those seeking poor relief. The governing authorities did not have enough space in the workhouses to provide relief for everyone and therefore ‘outdoor relief' would also be given if the local workhouse was full. Generally, outdoor relief was given to able-bodied individuals who did not need accommodation. The majority of those entering the workhouse would be the elderly, the infirm and children. The scale of poverty in Ireland as compared to England meant that a much larger proportion of Ireland's population sought assistance in this fashion.

Many records survive for the unions in either the National Archives of Ireland or, for the six counties of Northern Ireland, in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. The unions kept similar records to their English counterparts, including registers of entry and discharge, minute books, financial account books and records for those granted out-relief.

It should also be remembered that a very large number of people chose to emigrate from Ireland in the decades following the Great Famine to seek a better standard of living. Ireland suffered a steady decline in its population until well into the twentieth century. It is worthwhile checking the relevant emigration records in case your ancestor was one of the many Irish emigrants in this period (see
Chapter 23
).

Specific care of the mentally ill was not provided by central government for all sections of society until the nineteenth century. Prior to that the mentally ill were only taken care of if their families could afford to do so. Otherwise, they would have been treated like any other poor person unable to work. The State itself only became involved when there was a dispute over the property of the mentally ill individual or ‘lunatic' and when such cases reached the court of Chancery.

‘Specific care for the mentally ill was not given by the State until the nineteenth century.'

The Lord Chancellor would be responsible in cases of Chancery, and these individuals would be known as ‘Chancery lunatics'. Indeed, this method of dealing with lunatics with property had been in existence since the thirteenth century through the
De Praerogativa Regis
(‘on the King's Prerogative'), which gave the Crown the custody of the property of ‘natural fools' (or ‘idiots') or ‘lunatics' – the difference being that the former would be deemed to be of unsound mind from birth and the latter only temporarily. The Crown would be responsible for the estate of an ‘idiot' for the duration of their lifetime, but would only take over a lunatic's property during the periods of their lunacy. In practice it
would not be the Crown who would actually administer the property but, rather, a ‘committee' (individuals who were responsible for taking care of the lunatic or idiot, sometimes the next of kin).

An individual would be declared an idiot or lunatic only after an inquisition had been conducted by commissioners at the Lord Chancellor's request. The individual would have been brought to the attention of the Lord Chancellor by a number of means: through concerned relatives; by solicitors acting in circumstances where the supposed idiot/lunatic was involved; by creditors of such an individual; or by the Lunacy Commissioners themselves. The claim had to be supported by two sworn affidavits for the Lord Chancellor to allow an inquisition. He would then place the alleged idiot/lunatic and his property in the care of appropriate individuals – the above ‘committee' – and would then investigate the accounts of such committees, which would be submitted to the Chancery Master. All these surviving records can be researched at The National Archives.

If your ancestor was a lunatic without property, then there would be no record in the Chancery files. However, if the individual had some financial support, he or she may have been admitted to a private asylum. These were administered locally by the JPs. The state provision of mental asylums only became compulsory in 1845 with the establishment of the Lunacy Commission for England and Wales. Prior to that pauper lunatics would be helped under the general poor relief system.

The private asylums of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries started to come under increased State control by the passing of various pieces of legislation:

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The 1774 Madhouse Act introduced a licensing system for the operation of asylums. Henceforth it would be illegal to house more than one lunatic without such a licence. These licences would be issued by JPs in quarter sessions and the authorities would also inspect the asylums they were licensing. This licensing system remained in operation until it was superseded by the Mental Health Act of 1959.