Hi all, Jon has already said a lot of the things that I would have added to this discussion. Indeed, after the Poor Law change in 1832, workhouses were expressly made as awful as possible because the administration believed that if they were terrible they would serve as a successful deterrent to most people. I suggest anyone interested read the staff letters that have been digitized by the National Archives. I read a good number of them a few years ago and found them very eye-opening as to practices and attitudes, including that the staff attitudes varied considerably from workhouse to workhouse. Unfortunately Bideford Workhouse's early records of residents are not extant. In researching something else last year I accidentally discovered that Bradworthy seceded from Bideford Poor Law Union. Through the newspaper coverage of the event, I discovered that there was a law that 20 years after the initial Poor Law change, any parish could petition to secede from the Poor Law Union to which they had been initially assigned, under the principle that after 20 years the initial costs of building/etc the workhouse should have been paid off. Liz Loveland lovelandfamilyhistory@gmail.com

Hi, I am sure Brian would like this thread to end asap .......but I must take issue with Liz Loveland`s comment ... workhouses were expressly made as awful as possible because the administration believed that if they were terrible they would serve as a successful deterrent to most people This is so far from the facts but is the common belief thanks to Dickens . In fact as you work through the Board of Guardians minute book you will see that the "paupers" were provided with every necessity . They had a doctor , schoolteachers , food regularly of good if stodgy nature, and above all a roof over their heads and fires, a bed , clothes , shoes etc. The minute book details all of this So a workhouse child would probably be far better fed and educated and ready for work than his counterpart still scratching a living in the fieilds in the villages.. A 103 yrs old acquaintance of mine , a retired teacher, remembers the workhouse boys coming to school , each and every one of them clean and neatly turned out in good quality jacket trousers and boots. . . life is hard . soften it with a cat \\\=^..^=/// ----- Original Message ----- From: "Liz Loveland" <lovelandfamilyhistory@gmail.com> To: <devon@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 5:26 PM Subject: Re: [DEV] WORKHOUSE > Hi all, > > Jon has already said a lot of the things that I would have added to this > discussion. Indeed, after the Poor Law change in 1832, workhouses were > expressly made as awful as possible because the administration believed > that if they were terrible they would serve as a successful deterrent to > most people. I suggest anyone interested read the staff letters that have > been digitized by the National Archives. I read a good number of them a > few > years ago and found them very eye-opening as to practices and attitudes, > including that the staff attitudes varied considerably from workhouse to > workhouse. Unfortunately Bideford Workhouse's early records of residents > are not extant. > > In researching something else last year I accidentally discovered that > Bradworthy seceded from Bideford Poor Law Union. Through the newspaper > coverage of the event, I discovered that there was a law that 20 years > after the initial Poor Law change, any parish could petition to secede > from > the Poor Law Union to which they had been initially assigned, under the > principle that after 20 years the initial costs of building/etc the > workhouse should have been paid off. > > Liz Loveland > lovelandfamilyhistory@gmail.com > ------------------------------------------ > The DEVON-L mailing list is co-sponsored by GENUKI/Devon > ( http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/ ) > and > the Devon FHS (http://www.devonfhs.org.uk/ ) > List archive for Devon can be found at > http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/DEVON/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > DEVON-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message >