LO:

To explore the social historical

background to the novel OLIVER
TWIST
11th October 2009
Entrance to the workhouse: also
known as ‘THE GATEWAY OF
TEARS’
 The 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.
• The mental picture of the gaunt, forbidding workhouse is one
of the strongest impressions of Victorian England. Charles
Dickens painted the best-known picture of it in his Oliver
Twist, but even the great novelist's vivid descriptions of the
repressive, soul-destroying workhouse regime don't tell the
whole story.
• Just what was the workhouse? Put simply, it was a public
institution which housed and fed people who were unable to
support themselves.
 What were workhouses?
• These were almost like prisons, with bare
walls, hard beds, and little food. Family
members were split up and could never meet
as long as they were in the workhouse. People
were terrified of being sent to the workhouse
 Plan of a typical Victorian workhouse.
Designed to be "uninviting places of wholesome restraint"
 Plan of a typical Victorian workhouse.
Designed to be "uninviting places of wholesome restraint"

• As you look
at this image
think about
what it would
actually be
like to live
here,
separated
from your
family with
little hope of
leaving.
 The last resort
• For many people the workhouse was the place of last
resort. Inmates were generally classed as two
different groups: The "impotent poor" were those
unable to look after themselves, like the very old, the
very young, the sick, crippled, unmarried mothers,
the blind and insane.
• The "able bodied poor" were those who had no
work and therefore did not have any money to live
on.
• Impotent - powerless or helpless.
Able-bodied - fit for work or skilled.   
• Each new arrival at the workhouse would go through
a fairly involved admission procedure. After all the
necessary paperwork had been completed, paupers
were stripped, bathed, and issued with a workhouse
uniform. Children (although not adults) could be
required to have their hair cut. An inmate's own
clothes would be washed and disinfected and then put
into store along with any other possessions they had
and only returned to them when they left the
workhouse.
The last resort

• As paupers arrived at the

workhouse they were washed
and their hair was cut short.
All their belongings were
taken away and they were
given a workhouse uniform to
wear.   
•Usually for women this was a shapeless, waist less frock
reaching to their ankles and for men, shirts and ill-fitting
trousers tied with cord below the knee.
 People who went to the workhouse
•   No inmate could leave the workhouse
except permanently. Sadly, many of those
admitted died in the workhouse because
of the terrible conditions.
• Even worse, some workhouse children
who were born inside never saw the
outside world
 Work
• Work was designed to be hard and tedious and was an
essential part of the workhouse regime. Local landowners and
others who contributed to the upkeep of the inmates wanted
conditions to be harsh as they resented giving money to the
"undeserving poor".
• Breakfast was at 5.00am from March to September and at
7.00am the rest of the year. Inmates began work after prayers.
With only two more breaks for lunch, dinner and more prayers
they went to bed at eight.
• It was thought that religion would help the poor to overcome
their "laziness, fecklessness and drunkenness". Even school
lessons for children revolved around the Bible.
• Those who were unable to work lay in sick wards with nothing
to break the monotony.
“Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that
he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of
churchwardens and overseers, perhaps he
would have cried the louder.”
 Why Did People Enter the
Workhouse?
• People ended-up in the workhouse for a variety of
reasons. Usually, it was because they were too poor,
old or ill to support themselves. This may have
resulted from such things as a lack of work during
periods of high unemployment, or someone having no
family willing or able to provide care for them when
they became elderly or sick. Unmarried pregnant
women were often disowned by their families and the
workhouse was the only place they could go during
and after the birth of their child.
 Entering the Workhouse

• Whatever the regime inside the workhouse,

entering it would have been a distressing
experience. New inmates would often have
already been through a period of severe
hardship.
 Food and health
• An absolute minimum was spent on food, and
the penny-pinching attitude of the board of
guardians forced starving inmates to eat the
rotting marrow from the animal bones they
were breaking to sell as fertiliser.
 Why were inmates so unhealthy ?
All food had to be eaten with the hands as there was no cutlery.
There was only water to drink. Inmates were sometimes so
desperate for food that they ate animal bones they had been
given to crush to make fertilizer.
• The poor diet, contaminated water supplies, and unclean and
overcrowded conditions led to illness and disease. The most
common of these being measles, opthalmia, small pox,
dysentery, scarlet and typhus fever, and cholera.
 Why were inmates so unhealthy ?
•  Inmates were generally in a poor state of health because of
the poor diet they ate. As a result of the lack of nutrition in
their food they were prone to sickness and disease. With only
very basic medical care many died in the workhouse.
• Food in the workhouse was kept as boring and tasteless as
possible. It was rationed which meant the poor were always
hungry. The diet consisted mainly of gruel and bread and
cheese.
 Why was the discipline so strict?
•    Discipline was used to control inmates who
were often noisy and violent. Fighting was
common, especially in the women’s yard.
On the whole punishment was used regularly -
even for the smallest of offences.
• Men could be punished for trying to talk to
their wives and even children were scolded for
playing.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n3ebu
L1cPA

• http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTs9E
Dhshxo
- 6.55sec