Between the 18e and the 20e century, the fight against poverty in England involves the multiplication of workhouses. Between reception and repression, these “workhouses” remained feared by the destitute until their definitive closure in 1945, historian Jacques Carré reminds us.
From the end of the XVIe century in England, a national legislative system was put in place to govern public action intended to tackle the problem of indigence. Although modified and reworked many times, this system, established by the Poor Law of 1601 (Poor Law), will survive until after the Second World War. The law delegated to parishes (the administrative equivalent of our communes) the management and financing of aid granted to the indigent. The use of workhouse or “work house” is one of the aspects of parish assistance. It will take on an increasing role over the centuries. It is the history of this institution, between its beginnings under Elizabeth 1D and his disappearance in 1948, which is of interest to Jacques Carré, specialist in Victorian England and professor emeritus of British studies at the University of Paris-Sorbonne.
The workhouse: continuity and rupture
There workhouse is known today mainly in its 1830s form, made famous by Charles Dickens in the first chapters of his novel, Oliver Twist (1837-9), where the author jokes about the fact that the destitute of the time had the choice between dying of starvation quickly outside the workhouse or slowly inside. One of the major assets of J. Carré’s study is the place he reserves for the antecedents of the workhouse Victorian, XVIIe And XVIIIe centuries. While assistance provided to the indigent at home remained the dominant model during this period, there were a number of local initiatives aimed at creating new institutions bringing together the indigent under the same roof. As demonstrated by the first two parts of The prison of the poorthe objectives, scope and financing of these establishments vary greatly, as does the name adopted. These variations reflect the opinions of the different actors involved (parliamentarians, local elected officials, justices of the peace, philanthropists, etc.), as well as local specificities. Through this analysis, accompanied by case studies, we note that certain workhouses of the period aimed above all to punish or isolate the poor held responsible for their fate (“poor through negligence”, according to a formula from 1618). They were felt as a threat both to the morals of the country and to the public order of His Majesty. Other establishments placed more emphasis on the rehabilitation of the poor through labor, religious instruction, or a mixture of the two. Still others sought to help those who had become destitute “by helplessness” or “by accident”, such as widows, orphans or the sick.
If we can notice a certain continuity in the range of opinions expressed in England on the causes of indigence and the measures to be recommended to eradicate it (the author points out that in 1700, ”
As J. Carré explains in a particularly successful part of his work, this law represents a turning point punitive in the history of workhouse. Because, according to the government and the liberal and utilitarian ideology which underlies its action, the workhouse must at all costs push the physically able poor (able-bodied poor), considered idle, to pull themselves together and look for work. Only an unenviable harsh regime, inspired by that of the prisons of the time, could – it was thought – galvanize the energies of the members of this group and bring them out of dependence… It is up to each person to take their responsibilities.
An ambiguous and contested reform
Or not. For those who, despite this strong incentive to take individual responsibility, wanted to join the workhousethere was little hope. In this sense, the author notes that there is a real break with the “houses of work” of the previous period:
After having been the school of work, the workhouse explicitly became the repellent of marginality. From then on, the work inflicted within its walls would be nothing other than a punishment, since it opened no prospect of immediate or future gain… By agreeing to leave the normal economic circuit, the able-bodied indigents would be forced to doing unskilled work, incapable of preparing them for a return to normality.
This conception of a group of irreducible marginals, idle and hostile to any civilizing idea (a conception close to that of the “criminal classes” considered responsible for the alarming rise in delinquency at that time) does not achieve consensus, including in liberal and evangelical circles close to the government. Some criticize the absurdity of abandoning the idea of productive work in workhousewhich, according to them, reinforces the idleness of the able-bodied indigent. The new law also came under scathing criticism in the 1830s and 1840s from radicals, labor movements, as well as from a good number of conservatives, attached to the political and fiscal autonomy of local elites. Protests and in some cases riots will follow, particularly in the industrial regions of the north of the country. The virulence of the criticism, as well as the absence of effective mechanisms to enforce the new system on the ground, mean that the new generation of workhouses takes time (sometimes several decades) to become widespread.
There is also an ambiguity, even a contradiction, in the government’s conception of public assistance at this time, as J. Carré points out. We have seen that the new Poor Law places strong emphasis on the problems associated with the able-bodied destitute, and that the regime designed for workhouse is supposed to both dissuade them from entering it, and, for those who nevertheless find themselves there, punish them and/or amend them through difficult and grueling work. For men, it was recommended to break stones, make tow or grind bones, while for women, domestic tasks were provided, such as washing and ironing, sewing, cooking, etc., which had the further advantage of reducing establishment costs. The poor are thus imposed the same type of work assigned to prisoners in prison. We understand, in these conditions, that the populations likely to be there designated these establishments by prison names, such as “Bastille”.
To return to the ambiguity or contradiction of the situation, there is a tendency to concentrate, on the part of the authorities and parliament, on the fate of the able-bodied indigent (and especially on that of able-bodied men), in reality the latter represent only a small minority of those who live in workhouse. In 1860, for example, there were only 5% of internees from this group. Able-bodied women and children remained numerous, as did the old, the infirm, the sick and the insane. In other words, a regime designed for the “undeserving” poor will ultimately be imposed on a population composed primarily of “deserving” people for whom a priori the punishment and the amendment had no place. Thus, as J. Carré reminds us, “
Conclusion
Trace the history of the workhouse English, the evolution of its functions and its objectives, whether in theory or in reality, represents a significant challenge, even for a work of more than 500 pages. The prison of the poor succeeds brilliantly in accounting for these changes, the complexity of the debates and controversies surrounding the issue, and in presenting us with the very diverse actors who tackled it. There are few works that approach the long-term history of the Poor Law in this way.
Inevitably, this choice involves sacrificing details on certain points.
The reader who would like to explore the daily life of internees in the workhouse – the rhythm of the day and the place occupied by work, religion and (rare) leisure; the role of different staff members; the organization of space; or the punishments inflicted on the poor for non-compliance with the regulations – will need to supplement their knowledge by referring to other works, in particular from research on the very rich local English archives. The same goes for those who would seek to understand the functioning and extent of parish home assistance: a crucial element of the Poor Law before 1834, and, to a lesser extent, after. The bibliography and situography at the end of the book give some informed information on these subjects.
Moreover, The prison of the poor gives us a fascinating portrait of indigence and public policies to fight against poverty across the Channel between the XVIIe and the XXe centuries which will be of interest both to specialists in this period of English history, and to the public discovering the subject for the first time.