The Victorian workhouse was a total institution - Essay Example

Victorian workhouse-a total Table of Content Serial Number and Topic Heading Page Number 0 Introduction 02 2.0 Overview 03 3.0 Workhouse 03 4.0 The Institution 07 5.0 Summary 09 6.0 Conclusion 10 7.0 References 12 1.0 Introduction “In 1834, 3 years before Victoria became Queen of England; Parliament passed an Act that resulted in many workhouses being built to accommodate the poor and needy. Britain was reeling under severe poverty and unemployment due to the introduction of mechanised equipments. This was the Poor Law Amendment Act. Built to accommodate the poor, these workhouses housed many families; the old, the sick and the destitute poor, classified as ‘paupers’. By 1901, when the Queen’s reign ended, workhouses had transformed from the barbaric and suppressive asylum to logical care centres” (Powys Digital History Project, The workhouse)1 The Poor Law was a consolidation of a number of Acts which demanded that parish officers obtain taxes to pay for the up keeping of the poor as out-door relief and in-door relief which constituted the workhouses. These included orphans, the old, those who were mentally retarded, the unemployed, and the physically ill. “This Act of 1834 (English Poor Law Reform Act), was seen as a symbol of Victorian values; work and self-help. This Act curbed most of the so-called out-door relief to only those deserving poor, and forcing the beneficiaries into sex-segregated workhouses (to truncate the huge population growth witnessed during this period of English History), where they were forced to work for aid” (Tucker, p.103, 1999).2 2.0 Overview Queen Victoria was a monarch with a difference. She cared for her subjects and was appalled by what she saw on the streets. “She visited an asylum for ‘vagrant girls’ and came close to adopting the Coopers, a distressed gypsy family. She proclaimed the Coopers, despite their wretched exterior as good English Christians. Their conjugal, filial and paternal affection is very great as also their kindness and attention to their sick, old and infirm, stated the Queen” (Schama, p.126, 2002)3. Workhouses acted as a detriment to free aids. Those (the poor, orphans, sick, and aged) who were found to be lazy (often referred to by the affluent), or required support and relief were obliged to submit to workhouses, which acted as an institution that provided minimum sustenance in return for work. This was a clear indication of the wave of suppression against the poor by the rich and affluent to curb out-door and in-door relief for free. “Workhouses were designed to act as an institution that established a principle of discipline so severe and repulsive, as to make them a terror to the poor who desired to enter them for sustenance” said an Assistant Commissioner of the Poor Law (Townsend, 1981:8).The Workhouses were thus seen as a means of punishment for the down-trodden who transgressed conventional social norms. The Poor Law made the life of the weak and poor miserable. Workhouses were intended to provide a harsh regime of custodial care, where conditions were Spartan and overcrowding was the norm” (Willcocks, Kellaher & Peace, p.17, 1987)4 3.0 Workhouse “Thomas Carlyle in his book ‘Past and Present’ argued in the context of the ball, that the sacred relics of medieval Christian England was not for dressing up dancing, but a reproach to the inhumane soullessness of an age in which everything was calculated by material calculation. Engineers of felicity greased the cogs of power and profit while normal people got trapped between the flywheels. This was a time when the powerful became even more powerful and the rich got richer. The less fortunate were left to defend for themselves and mostly found themselves on the streets. Carlyle visited a poorhouse at St. Ives and waxed wrathfully at the inhumanity of the prevailing system that kept men either idle or, in places designed to be like prisons, under the existing New Poor Law” (Schama, p.127, 2002)5. The population of Britain had been multiplying rapidly during the first decade of the 19th century, and with mechanisation, employment levels had come down drastically, giving way to unemployment and poverty. The influx of immigrants from the countryside did not make matters any easier. Dwellings became scarce and not surprisingly, their conditions horrific. Many people who were on the streets of Britain in want of food, work and shelter were given the benefit of in-house relief through the Act of Poor Law. However, the law came in for severe criticism later on, when historians found that these workhouses were in fact used as a tool by the affluent to make the ‘lazy’ work for alms. The workhouses were used to good effect in stemming unwanted population growth and strictly adhering to the principle of food-for-work. The industrialisation of Britain showed great promise of economic growth and prosperity. The Poor Law was an Act to protect the poor and weak from misery through care. This was far from true. The old and sick were treated badly for being a liability to the economic prosperity of the nation. Workhouses ran like institutions that made to punish the weak and poor. If one wanted to have a meal or rest, they had to earn it through hard labour. It was clear that the industrialists of that time were deliberately creating such institutions to punish and stigmatise indigents. The conditions of the workhouses were appalling. There was no distinguishing the weak from the able-bodied. The old and children had to run the same errands to survive. There were fewer beds for more people. People were stacked together in tiny rooms, and lunatics shared beds with children, women and the sick. Such was the condition of the workhouse that a government report on the sanitary conditions of the labouring population of Great Britain, when between a quarter and a third of Manchester’s male population was unemployed and ‘haggard and half-clothed men and women stalked the streets, begging for bread’, described a typical lodging house in the city as: “It contained between six to eight beds in a single room. The invariable practice was to cram as many beds into a room as it could possibly hold. The description of the scene at night is one of most lamentable description; beds filled promiscuously with men, women and children, the floors were covered with filthy, ragged clothes along with their personal belongings in bundles and packages. The suffocating stench and heat of the atmosphere in the rooms were almost intolerable” (Schama, p.133, 2002)6. Such overcrowding and unhygienic conditions led to the outbreak of grievous epidemics such as typhus, typhoid and cholera. The new political class empowered by the New Poor Act took a tougher view of the plight of the unemployed. “The New Poor Law enacted by the Whig government in 1834 was designed expressly to deter these ‘habitually slothful types’, as they were perceived, from sponging off the rates, making the regime inside the workhouse so close to that of a prison that no one was remotely capable of gaining any kind of legitimate work should they submit themselves to it. The Inmates of ‘Bastilles’, as they were commonly referred to as, were brutally shorn, and dressed up in uniform drab to distinguish from others. Husbands were separated from their wives and both from their children, a treacherous ordeal within the institution. In a society supposed to value family as the school of social morality, it was a casualty of misfortune. Most Poor Law Guardians believed that through misfortune of moral failing, these people had landed the reprobate in the workhouse. It would do them no favour to make the place flow with the milk of human kindness” (Schama, p.134, 2002)7. “The social classes of people were segregated within the workhouses, and the condition of those within the workhouses was comparatively less favourable than their able-bodied counterparts living outside. Those confined to workhouses formed the lowest stratum of society; the poor and sick. It was found that many children under sixteen lived in the general mixed workhouse, and that large lunatic and idiot population mixed freely with the other inmates, including children and pregnant women. The workhouse acted as an institution, with infants, the sick, and the aged looked after by fellow-paupers. The number of children on out-relief on any one day varied between 200,000 and 300,000, the sick formed about 30 per cent of the total population in the workhouses. Outdoor relief was not, as commonly alleged, given indiscriminately, but primarily to the sick, the aged, and the infirm, and to mothers with young children. Babies and infants were taken into the workhouse and separated from their mothers to be looked after by nursing mothers” (Pauline Gregg, p.488, 1982)8 4.0 The Institution Wikipedia defines institutions as “structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation, governing the behavior of two or more individuals. Institutions are identified with a social purpose and permanence, transcending individual human lives and intentions, and with the making and enforcing of rules governing cooperative human behavior” (Wikipedia, Institution, 2007)9. As early as 1795, a law to curb poverty was introduced. Under this law, a minimum guaranteed income plan was adopted. Workers receiving low wages received supplemental income through parish funds based on their family size and wages. Public grumbling arose, as poor families and unmarried women began having more children to increase their income. “Rising numbers of paupers and increased industrialisation and enclosure acts forced many people to seek relief. The staggering cost of maintaining the poor soon became critical. Overburdened parishes called on Parliament for help, which responded by appointing a commission headed by Edwin Chadwick to investigate. This resulted in the creation of the New Poor Law of 1834, which created several policies, including that of the workhouse system”. Those entering the workhouse had to bear the hard and tedious work that was designed and incorporated as an essential part of the workhouse regime. “Local landowners and others who contributed to the upkeep of the inmates wanted conditions to be harsh as they resented giving money to the undeserving poor. Breakfast was served at 5.00 am between March to September, and at 7.00 am for the rest of the year. Inmates had to begin work after prayers. There were only two other breaks, for lunch and dinner, before retiring for more prayers and bed at eight. This rule was made to teach the inmates against being lazy, feckless and drunk. Even school lessons for children revolved around the Bible. Those who were unable to work lay in sick wards with nothing to break the monotony10” The rich looked down upon the poor with disdain. This event took root that perhaps all poor were undeserving. Many people scorned the poor rather than pitying them. Thus, applying for relief was a tacit admission of defeat and moral degradation for the poor. On top of this, one premise of the New Poor Law supported the idea that the workhouse was a last resort. Thus, the workhouse was made as unattractive as possible to give the poor an incentive to work and save” (Sandra Spencer, The Victorian Poorhouse)11. “Admittance to the House resembled admittance to a penal institution. There was no separate accommodation for those of infirm mind within the workhouse. Poor Law Commissioners reported on the terrible sights in the workhouses. They reported sighting feeble-minded boys grow up in the Workhouse only to be untaught, untrained, neglected, and tormented by other inmates. There were the imbeciles annoying the sane, and vice-versa, half-witted women nursing the sick, feeble-minded women in charge of babies, and imbecile old men put to look after the boys out of school hours. Out-relief was given in return for work performed in the labour yard attached to the workhouse, like wood-chopping, corn-grinding, oakum-picking, or stone-breaking. For some men the labour was no bad proposition, and they kept coming back to establish the labour yard as their place of employment” (Pauline Gregg, p.492-93, 1982)12 5.0 Summary “To most early nineteenth century intellectuals, the poor made up for the majority of British population. This term covered a wide spectrum of individuals. They could be classified as those who lacked property and profession, those who had to work for a living, and those who were unable to work, and had to depend on charity or relief for their subsistence”13. “Within the poor there were both the independent poor (those who could manage on their own), and the dependent poor (those who required help). Then there were the able-bodied paupers and the impotent (those unable to work: small children, the elderly, the sick, the disabled)”14 “During this period there was this assumption that poor relief promoted the growth of redundant population that could create further scare in national food and employment opportunities, giving way to further poverty. The lazy would seek outside relief, which was an incentive to not work for those with very short-term goals. In addition, as long as there was a safety net to make sure that no one would starve, this would encourage improvident marriages by those who did not engage in long-term, prudent planning”15.(Clayton E. Cramer, p.6, 1996) This brought about the establishment of the Poor Law and workhouses into Britain. Men and women were kept separated, so too were married men and women. The theory of relief was a tacit admission of defeat and moral degradation. One premise of the New Poor Law supported the idea that the workhouse and made it as unattractive as possible to give the poor an incentive to work for living. The food-for-work ethics given in workhouses made them resemble institutions that cared more for personal benefits than the inmates there. Workhouses were quite abhorred to begin with and the passing of time, the number of adolescents in them began to diminish. The workhouses were successful to the extent of dissuading the poor and unemployed from seeking refuge in them. The living conditions, the work ethics and schedules were far from humane. 6.0 Conclusion The classification of the Victorian workhouse as an institution is quite clear for all to classify. The style and functioning of these workhouses resembled the analogical sequence of a prisoner in jail, and the inmates were put to hardship. Unless the people in the workhouses opted to work, they were not cared and less fed. Workhouses were made to initiate a dictatorship image that made no differentiation between the weak, the sick, the lame, children, the old, and women. In the workhouse all were equal and had to bear the same ignominy of sharing beds with one another. Pregnant and nursing mothers had to part with their babies and were subjected to intolerable humiliation of being separated from their husbands. The idea of these practices was to dissuade the so-called last, feckless, and drunken vagabonds from getting free relief. Thus, the workhouse did act as an institution. 7.0 References 1.0 Pauline Gregg, A Social and Economic History of Britain 1760-1980 8TH Edition Revised, Harrap Limited, 1982 2.0 Sandra Spencer, The Victorian Poorhouse, umwww.ucsc.edu/dickens/OMF/spencer.html 3.0 Powys Digital History Project, The workhouse, history.powys.org.uk/school1/poor/workmenu.shtml 4.0 Simon Schama: A History of Britain 3, 1776-2000, BBC Worldwide Ltd., 2002 5.0 Clayton E. Cramer, The Early Victorian Workhouse, www.claytoncramer.com/workhouse.pdf 1996 6.0 Herbert F. Tucker, A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture, Blackwell Publishing, 1999 7.0 Dianne M. Willcocks, Leonie A. Kellaher & Sheila M. Peace, Private Lives in Public Places: A Research-Based Critique of Residential Life in Local Authority old People’s Homes, Routledge, 1987 8.0 Wikipedia, Institution, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institution Read More