#52Ancestors - Week 31 - Help

For many of our ancestors, there would have been times when they needed help.  For many who fell on hard times, help from family, friends and neighbors may have been a necessity.  For some help could be obtained from charities, guilds and other sources.  For many, the workhouse was the place of last resort when they were in need of help and unable to find it anywhere else.

The origins of parochial poor relief extend back at least as far as the fifteenth century.  With the decline of the monasteries, care for the poor gradually moved from its traditional voluntary framework to become a compulsory tax administered at the parish level.  Over several centuries the enactment of the Poor Laws saw the rise of the Workhouse, with few other sources of help available.

Stories about the Workhouse abound.  People ended up in the workhouse for a variety of reasons, usually because they were too poor, old or ill to support themselves. This may have resulted from 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. Prior to the establishment of public mental asylums in the mid-nineteenth century (and in some cases even after that), the mentally ill and mentally handicapped poor were often consigned to the workhouse. Workhouses, though, were never prisons, and entry into them was generally a voluntary although often painful decision for those in need of help.

Admission into the workhouse first required an interview to establish the applicant's circumstances. This was most often undertaken by a Relieving Officer who would visit each part of the Workhouse union on a regular basis. Formal admission into the workhouse proper was authorised by the Board of Guardians at their weekly meetings, where an applicant could summoned to justify their application - an intimidating experience for those in need of help.