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research.ncl.ac.uk/pauperlives/

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

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research.ncl.ac.uk/pauperlives/

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

  2. Workhouse plan

  3. 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’

  4. 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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. London workhouses: anticipation of New Poor Law?

  8. St Martin’s workhouse was the third biggest in terms of ‘capacity’ in the London area in 1803

  9. 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 magistrate Use 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?

  10. Number of recorded times admitted

  11. Age 15-39 as % of total workhouse population

  12. Recidivists?

  13. Life cycle crises and applications for welfare Yearly interval between husband’s death and examination

  14. 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

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