Workhouse

WORKHOUSE. The workhouse (in Scotland known as the poorhouse) is a British institution in which paupers are main tained. It is administered in England and Wales by the board of guardians (the parish council in Scotland), under regulations pre scribed by a central authority, the Ministry of Health or the Scot tish Board of Health. Destitute persons are admitted to the work house by a written order of the board of guardians or the reliev ing officer, or in exceptional cases by the master or matron with out an order. All inmates are subject to strict discipline whilst remaining in the workhouse, and, under ordinary circumstances, may not leave the institution without first giving "reasonable notice," which is usually held to mean not less than 24 hours and in some situations it may be as long as three days.

Primitive workhouses were set up here and there in the 17th century under the Poor Relief Act of 16oi, which directed the overseers of every parish, amongst other things, to raise funds "for providing a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron and other ware and stuff to set the poor on work." But in this early period the authorities were for the most part content with "houses of correction" for the chastisement of the vagabond.

The 18th century saw the establishment of workhouses in towns and rural parishes. The administration was either brutally hard or incredibly lax; they ranged, it has been said, from `houses of terror" to "houses of debauchery." In 1834 the modern system was introduced. The 15,000 parishes of Eng land and Wales were organized into a few hundred poor law "unions," each of which was required to set up a "well-regulated workhouse." Only in this institution could an able-bodied man and

his family get relief, and in order to deter him from coming, the regimen was purposely made repugnant.

The Workhouse Condemned.

But in the course of the 19th century the strict principles of 1834 were generally relaxed, and in 1909 a royal commission found the state of the workhouses with few exceptions deplorable, and unanimously recommended their abolition. They were not abolished, but some improvement was effected under pressure from the central authority. In particular, a better "classification" of the inmates was enjoined. Married couples aged over 6o are now not to be separated if they wish to live together, and children between the ages of 3 and 16 may not be maintained in the workhouse. Some boards of guardians, how ever, have persisted in breaking this latter regulation, and in 1927 it was reported that in Somerset 15%, in Dorset 31% and in Cornwall 37% of the pauper children were in the workhouses. An effort was also made to render the workhouse less repellent to the poor by calling it "the institution," but there was no popular enthusiasm over this, and the old name continued in general use. After the World War, with the general relaxation of the restric tions on outdoor relief, the workhouse became less than ever a place for "testing" the able-bodied by disagreeable tasks of work. The inmates are chiefly aged and infirm. (See POOR LAW.) (C. M. L.)