Poorhouses and Workhouses

 Christmas Carol mentions poorhouses and workhouses through Scrooge's infamous line about "Are there no workhouses?". Allow me to enlighten you on what those were. 

Photo by gold.ac.uk

When we see the horrified faces of the charity workers responding to Scrooge's comment on workhouses this is because these places were horrible. Scrooge literally told them that the poor can die in these places and he didn't care in different words. I mentioned almshouses and poorhouses in a previous blog about Nursing Homes. 

The earliest laws for dealing with the poor were made in 1601. The Elizabethan Poor Law declared locals had responsibility for the poor, had to provide for them, and were not liable for the poor outside their town. The paupers of the time could be auctioned off and work as payment for having a home. The poorhouses had the goal of transforming the character of their people and check the expenses of pauperism (selling the poor to other people). You still had to work for your care, but it was supposed to deter you from calling outside aid. This system was abused as the poor stayed and left on repeat, not finding work for themselves and taking advantage of the poorhouses.

Scottish Law

The Scottish laws were not what Dickens portrayed, being a separate system from the UK. The poor here were in two categories - deserving or undeserving poor. 1424 law made the point that some could work and didn't, while others couldn't physically work at all. If you were able-bodied and didn't work you could be arrested with two choices. Choice one was to find work within 40 days and choice two was prison. If unable to work, you had a token that showed authorities you were allowed to beg. 

The churches supported the poor who were unable to work. A 1579 act shifted that responsibility straight to the church. This created aid for those who were infirm or elderly. The children of beggars were not free from being taken as slaves (unpaid labor), however, until a boy was 24 and a girl 18. Landowners could take the offspring of beggars and make them work for nothing until those ages. 

Correction houses were poorhouses in Scotland. While these did exist and there was a legal union to England, the Scottish law is separate and resulted in a more functional city. The city was clean and well-built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1707.

Glasgow Asylum - Photo by Pinterest

The workhouse introduced something similar to an asylum when they created a floor for lunatics. This led to the Glasgow Asylum for Lunatics around 1810. After expansion and moving, a second location became a poorhouse. The conditions were meant to discourage all but the most desperate. It was criticized for unsanitary conditions. The institution separated kids, males, and females. If you had family you had to ask there for support first. Disability was a requirement to get in. 

In the Barony parish of Glasgow the able-bodies worked to make firewood and stones. If you didn't work you were put in solitary confinement and given bread and water rations, as opposed to tea and class C diet. 1845 required care for "lunatics" to be had in Barony. They built an asylum for the care of the "lunatics".

Glasgow Poor house -Photo by Glasgow Punter

Govan and Gorbals never established a poorhouse due to lack of funds. When Govan did have a poorhouse the nurses were unpaid and taken from the female inmate population (like most nurses in poorhouses). It was an area of seriously low income. 

The poor had to jump through so many hoops to get into these places and get the help they needed that it was ridiculous. If no family would support you and no poorhouse would give you aid in either cash or living place you were destitute and on the streets. While the idea that the family should be supporting family members is good, not every family did. If they found you had family you might not get into a poorhouse, even if you had asked for support previous to contacting the poorhouse. 

Anyone and Everyone

These places had also become a human garbage dump, meaning that they threw anyone they didn't want out and about in there. This is where elder care started after some families couldn't find space for their family members, which sickens me. Orphaned people ended up in here. Some of the accommodations were less than stellar, with straw beds, terrible food, flies everywhere, and generally awful conditions that made it more like a prison. Living in an almshouse created stigmas, too, and that you could never shake - even if you got out of there. 

The worry over the state of these places made foster homes and orphanages start. They had thrown orphans in the poorhouse and workhouse before this and the unsanitary conditions made some people upset. In 1875 the Children's Act passed, which meant children aged 2 to 16 couldn't be in the workhouse. This adjustment made the almshouse look more like a home for the aged. 

1800s Orphanage - Photo by Pinterest

To be fair to those who did treat the poor of the time with care and tried to make it a home and not a dump, the Beverly Poorhouse in 1900 did fairly well for a time. They kept the house and grounds in order. They tried to keep it sanitary and feed the people they served good food. I don't know if it lasted, but they did okay for a while. 

The closest equivalent we have to this system, a system no longer in place, is a temporary shelter or soup kitchen. The poorhouses were dispersed as the foster system and orphanages took the young kids from the workhouses and the elders that were there went into nursing or assisted living homes. The government aids those of low income today and the stigma still remains. The people who take advantage of the system remain, too, but that is not everyone. There are people who need that help and get it without milking it. 

Worthy of Aid

Whether you were worthy of aid in any form was a big question. It had to do with your character. What it came down to was probably your reputation. If you couldn't work, were a lone woman with a child, or had an illness you saw an overseer who deemed whether you were worthy of help. It was a problem if you were considered immoral or had a mental disorder that made it hard to work. Pillars of the community got aid easily, but the loose woman down the road who ended up with child didn't. If you got any help at all as undeserving poor it was the almshouse. 

Many immigrants ended up here. Poorhouses in America started around the time immigration began. The poorhouses were to deter undeserving poor, so you can imagine that they weren't kept well. Higher classes thought that almshouses, asylums, prisons, and orphanages created character and reformed the poor, which was actually wrong. Reformers eventually made an effort to get fallen women, children, and the mentally ill out of the institution. It left only the elderly there, likely along with some immigrants. The 14th amendment made it impossible to be forced into a poorhouse unless you volunteered to be.

Conclusions

The poorhouses are directly connected with the creation of Asylums, the foster and orphanage system, and nursing homes. My research proves to me that helping the people who truly need it is not as easy as once thought. People will take advantage of the aid systems as long as our society exists. The issue is that the early aid systems turned away those that truly needed it because they were "immoral", "fallen", or mentally ill and physically able. We need to consider this and let it sink in. The system meant to help those who needed serious help turned them away because they judged their character and not their needs. I'm truly disgusted by the fact that those who came to the system for help for real were refused for not being considered worthy -  when the gospel tells us Jesus saved us despite our sin. We weren't worthy of that, but Jesus did it anyway, so let's be kind to those who need our help. Make Charles Dickens proud. 

Sources:

The History of the Poorhouse (primaryresearch.org)

A journey through the old Glasgow workhouses – Source (sourcenews.scot)

The Poorhouse: America’s Forgotten Institution – Brewminate: We're Never Far from Where We Were