Workhouse records

For many of our ancestors, the workhouse – and the poor relief system of which it formed a major part – loomed large in their lives. For those in need, it was the welfare system of its day, providing help for the homeless, the unemployed, the sick, the physically and mentally incapacitated, parentless children and single mothers.

Originally based around individual parishes, an overhaul of poor relief in 1834 created new administrative areas – groupings of parishes known as Poor Law Unions – each with its own workhouse and run by a locally elected Board of Guardians. A central body, the Poor Law Commissioners (PLC), oversaw the operation of the new system.

Keeping costs down was a constant concern for the administrators of the relief system and for the local ratepayers who funded it. That meant minimising expenditure and keeping a tight rein on those to whom assistance was granted, especially by a clamp-down on providing out-relief – handouts in the form of cash or kind, such as bread. From 1834, it was intended that able-bodied men and their families were to be deterred from seeking help by making the workhouse the only form of relief on offer.

The PLC introduced an extraordinary level of bureaucracy, with a vast array of record books and forms that unions would require in order to carry out their responsibilities. Fortunately for family historians, those that survive can provide a wealth of information and it definitely pays to explore beyond the most obvious records such as admission and discharge registers.

For someone unable to put food on the table, or to pay their rent, seeking help from the union might be their only practical option. The usual first point of contact with the relief system was not to knock on the door of a workhouse, but to contact one of the union’s front-line officials, the Relieving Officers, who regularly visited each parish in the union and assessed each applicant’s individual situation.

A claimant might well be hoping for out-relief which, despite the PLC’s aims, continued to be the overall most frequent form of assistance. Those receiving and accepting the offer of the workhouse were given an admission ticket and made their own way there, potentially a walk of up to ten miles, accompanied by their family, if any.

In some cases, there might be doubt over an applicant’s