Workhouse was an institution established to give shelter and provide work for poor people. In England, workhouses were first established in the 1500’s, but were most common in the 1700’s and 1800’s. A number of other countries also had workhouses. Usually, the harsh conditions in workhouses discouraged all but the most desperate people from seeking help in them. During the 1900’s, public welfare systems and programs such as social security brought an end to workhouses.
In the late 1500’s, a rising population, changes in land use, and a series of bad harvests drove many English villagers off the land. Many people sought work in other regions or in towns. In 1601, the English Parliament passed an Act for the Relief of the Poor, the first in a series of poor laws. The law required local government officials to use special tax funds to provide assistance to the people in need in their parish (district).
Workhouses originated as institutions to house and employ impoverished people who could work. The early laws permitted punishment for workhouse inhabitants judged to be able but unwilling to work. Labor done in workhouses was not allowed to compete with outside industry. Authorities deliberately kept conditions harsh to encourage people to leave as soon as possible.
The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act attempted to standardize relief for the needy in Britain. It limited assistance for healthy, able individuals to those who went to live in a workhouse, but home aid never disappeared completely. Those judged to be truly unable to work were supposed to receive aid at home or in institutions called poorhouses. In practice, however, both workhouses and poorhouses might shelter entire families, the elderly, the disabled, and orphan children together with people suffering from contagious diseases such as tuberculosis and other serious physical and mental illnesses. Conditions were often grim. Scandals arose as the so-called “inmates” of some institutions starved. Other people preferred starvation to entering a workhouse or a poorhouse.
British colonists introduced workhouses and poorhouses to America. Canada and the United States had some workhouses, but most of their institutions for the needy were county-run poorhouses or poor farms, where the work included tending farmland. People with different economic and medical needs typically were housed together in these facilities.
During the early 1900’s, disability insurance, old age pensions, and other forms of welfare aid reduced the population in workhouses and poorhouses. Some of the buildings were converted into hospitals, nursing homes, or other institutions.
