London Workhouses in 1900

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In Imperial London, 1901, Arthur H. Beavan continued his overview of poverty in London with a look at the workhouses:

By 1900 Workhouses were no longer of the kind described by Dickens, where Oliver Twist's request for "more" was received with such righteous indignation by Bumble.

The time had not arrived for such places to be strictly reserved for the sick and aged, leaving children, imbeciles and epileptics, vagrants and tramps to be dealt with in separate and suitable institutions; but they had vastly improved in later years, the inmates occasionally being treated with, perhaps, even a superabundance of consideration.

What would Mr. and Mrs. Bumble have thought of a Thames sea trip for the aged poor of the Islington Union, such as they enjoyed in 1900, through private liberality, when a first-class steamer was chartered, and boundless hospitality prevailed, showing itself in prime Scotch salmon and dry champagne!

What would they have said about the tea-party given at West Ham in honour of the oldest pauper, one Dame Stock, aged one hundred, when tea and cake, peppermint drops, and snuff, were provided for the ancient guests, none of whom were under eighty-five!

And what would the dead-and-gone masters and matrons have thought of workhouse children's exhibitions, where needlework and samples of cookery were shown by the girls, and specimens of tailoring, carpentering, shoe-making, plumbing, etc, were displayed by the boys, in a public Town-hall!

And still more would they have been astounded at the Nurses' Dances, a feature of the Lambeth Workhouse Infirmary, which the sedate guardians made a point of attending, and actually danced with the demure-looking "sisters."

Tempora mutantur, indeed, with a vengeance.

Workhouses were planted in every London district, at every point of the compass, from distant Woolwich to Fulham, from breezy Hampstead to Wandsworth and Clapham, and all of them, with a few exceptions, architecturally as ugly as a Lancashire cotton-mill, the greatest sinners in this respect being St. Luke's, the Holborn Union in Shepherdess Walk, City Road, and its Infirmary in Archway Road, Highgate.

Within, these refuges were necessarily unhomelike and unattractive.

They all bore a strong family likeness, were all scrupulously clean - too clean, the inmates thought - and perfectly ventilated, which, to the infirm, meant draughts everywhere.

The dining-rooms had bare walls, long deal tables and benches, and the food, though good of its kind, was deficient in variety and, of course, uncompromisingly plain.

The ward system was universal, the sleeping-wards resembling those of a hospital.

Then there were the comparatively comfortable quarters of the matron and master; the big laundry; the women's work-room, the children's wards, etc; and in the vagrants' department the dreaded bath-rooms (forcibly described by Mr. Frederick Greenwood, the "Amateur Casual"), and the oakum-picking, wood-cutting, and stone-breaking yards.

The Infirmary - a separate building - was usually a more agreeable place than the House.

Pictures adorned the walls, and plants and flowers were scattered about, and the patients were visited regularly by the chaplains and philanthropic people who did their best to cheer them.

There was, also, in most workhouses, a special section for the semi-lunatic, and a dismal padded room for refractory sufferers of this description.

Throughout the winter the inmates of workhouses were treated to entertainments, concerts, magic-lantern lectures, etc, which help to break the dull monotony of their lives; and they also had the privilege, all the year round, of an occasional Sunday out.

The discipline, though marked, was lax compared with that of a gaol; yet the vagrant seemed to prefer the "spike," as he called the latter, to the "lump;" his own designation for the casual ward, where from Saturday evening until Monday morning he was sure of board and lodging, with only four pounds of oakum to pick in return for his entertainment.

In some Unions, such as Westminster (Soho), a most enlightened system prevailed.

The degrading distinctive workhouse garb had been abolished, and extra comforts in the shape of tea, sugar, and tobacco, had been granted to the aged.

Money, instead of food, was given for outdoor relief, as it was found that bread and meat, when granted as part of the dole, were not used to the best advantage, the quartern loaf often becoming stale, while the meat could not always be cooked.

Soho Workhouse, in Poland Street, was interesting as illustrating the growth of London.

When its site was conveyed to the parishioners, in 1694, by Sir Thomas Clarges and others, it was described as "abutting on Windmill Fields on the south, Paulett's Close on the east, and on the pest-house garden on the west and south;" but a long distance would now have to be tramped from Poland Street, to reach either open field or close.

St. Marylebone Workhouse, in the Marylebone Road; Kensington, in Marlow Road, off the Cromwell Road; and Fulham, in Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, were worth a visit; also Chelsea, if only to see in summer the poor old women, in white caps, picturesquely sitting amongst the tombs in the disused graveyard in the King's Road, near the Vestry Hall.

Next: London in 1900: Coroners' Courts