Sculcoates Workhouse

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What was a workhouse?

The word alone was calculated to send a shudder down the spine of any honest 19th century worker. It signified the end of the line, the final indignity. It said: Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.

If you were poverty stricken, an unwanted orphan, or an impoverished widow, if you were too old to work, or you were sick or deranged, you could end up in the dreaded union workhouse. The Poor Law of 1601 made the welfare of the poor the responsibility of parish councils. The council would house the poor in either a cottage, or in a house built for the purpose. Some poor people were provided with money food and clothing whilst continuing to live in their own homes.

Following the civil wars in the middle of the 17th Century, a shortage of jobs led to an increasing number of people moving around, looking for work. This placed pressure on the parishes, responsible for providing relief. The government brought the 1662 Act of Settlement which stated that the parishes could only give relief to long term residents or people born within their boundaries, all others had to return to their place of origin.

The workhouse really rose to prominence with the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which required each of the new unions of parishes to provide a central workhouse which would classify the poor by age, sex, and circumstances and accommodate them under conditions which only the truly destitute would apply. Relief was given only to those poor who agreed to accept the strict regime of the workhouse, where the conditions provided were funded at a level below that affordable by a person in work.

Sculcoates Workhouse

1881

How it may have been

“Hello sir, my name?” My name is Mary Jane and they say I am 3...

... middle of paper ...

...oad and Fountain Road.

In 1883 school blocks and officers accommodation was added however they were changed to infirmary blocks in 1896 and by 1900 the workhouse could accommodate 832 inmates. The national Achieves records it as changing its name in 1929 to Beverley Road Institution and then in 1949 it became the Kingston General Hospital. It closed in 2000, however the day hospital remained open until 2002 when the building was demolished and the Endeavour High School was built and opened on the site.

Works Cited

Members of the Hull and District Local History Research Group. “A Breath of Sculcoates”

Edward Gillett and Kenneth A Mahon.” A History of Hull”

Peter Higginbotham “www. Workhouses.org.uk”

www. encyolopedia.com

JOHN CANNON. "workhouses." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. 19 Mar. 2012.

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