Site contents © Copyright Michael Crouch, 2000. |
Site contents © Copyright Michael Crouch, 2000. |
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St Andrew's Workhouse
In 1851, the Workhouse was home to 225 people, 103 women and 122 men, all aged between 1 and 86 years of age. The Workhouse was run by William C. Lowne, aged 60, his wife and two daughters. A further four people were employed as porters and general servants. Almost all of those interred there were born in Norfolk, many in Norwich itself, with only a few coming from further afield. They had various skills and trades. They included servants, scholars, bakers, dress makers, chimney sweeps, weavers, bricklayers, saddlers, carpenters, shoemakers, hawkers of vegetables and a washerwoman! For whatever reasons, all of them had fallen onto hard times and sought the relative safety of the Workhouse as a source of food and shelter. In return, they were expected to work hard for their lot. That said, Norwich was a good deal more compassionate towards its Workhouse inmates than many cities. From Norwich in the nineteenth century, Christopher Barringer tells us: "Workhouse accommodation in St. Andrew's in Bridge Street, (now St. George's) part of the old Blackfriars Street, was totally inadequate, with provision for little more than 350 people, young, able-bodied and old being found together in the same ward. Outdoor relief rose steadily from an average of 2,015 people a week in 1847 to a weekly average of 3,380 receiving help in 1849. Many of those on outdoor relief would have refused to enter the workhouse if given the opportunity to do so. Those that did were better fed than many outside its confines. Men received 6 ounces of bread, an ounce of cheese and a half pint of tea for their breakfast, and a similar diet, without the tea, for their Monday and Saturday dinners. Tuesday and Thursday were meat days, each man receiving 4 ounces of meat together with 5 and a half ounces of yeast dumpling and 12 ounces of potatoes. On Wednesdays 6 ounces of bread were supplemented by 2 pints of soup or milk broth; on Fridays they were given twice the amount of yeast dumpling (11 ounces) while on Sundays they sat down to 16 ounces of suet pudding. Women and children received proportionately smaller amounts. Suppers normally consisted of 6 ounces of bread, half an ounce of butter and half a pint of tea, varied on Tuesdays and Thursdays by 2 pints of meat broth in place of the butter and tea. Such lavish fare irked at least one of the assistant poor law commissioners who asserted that he had "never seen bread of such fine quality in any other workhouse; it is equal to any provided for my own family."" From The Norwich Directory of 1783 we are informed that "the children of St. Andrew's workhouse are employed in rooms in Colegate Street to spin yarn. Along with children from St. John's workhouse, about 250 are employed "to contribute towards their own maintenance, - their health and morals improved, and the public much benefited!"" The St. Andrew's or Duke's Palace Workhouse stood roughly in the north-east area of modern-day Howard House. In the late 1700's and early 1800's, conditions were said to be unbearable. In one case, a 32 year old man, William Priest, threw himself from a window in 1798. In 1827, two boys, one aged 11, "tried to escape from the workhouse through the privy." One of the boys tried to climb onto the privy roof with a muck fork but dropped it. The fork hit the other boy across the head and he died later in hospital. Citizens paid a heavy tax in Norwich to support the needy and cuts were always being sought. The waste of flour and hops due to workhouse inmates having inadequate baking and beer-making skills made it cheaper to buy bread and beer wholesale. In 1805 James Neild wrote to the Gentleman's Magazine on the terible conditions in the Duke's Palace workhouse: "The building is old. The average number in the house about five hundred and fifty. In the first room I visited there were forty two beds, ten of them cribs for single persons, and the others had two in each, there being seventy-four persons in this room. At the entrance, and in the room, is a most offensive and indecent privy, something like a watchman's box, and so much out of repair, and so situated, that the sexes cannot be separated when decency most requires it. The paupers ate, drank and slept on their beds, having no other room to live in . . . In the boys' room were offensive tubs as urinals; these are emptied daily into a sink in the room, and it did not appear to have been lately washed. One bed in the room was particularly offensive, from an infirmity of the boy who slept in it, his urine passed completely through the bedding, and was suffered to accumulate on the floor to a very putrid degree." |
