A Visit to Cirencester Workhouse

A Visit to Cirencester Workhouse

The workhouses in the agricultural districts of England have wonderfully improved during the last ten years. The masters, matrons and teachers are of a higher class, better educated and more conscientious in the performance of their duties; and the guardians are, as a rule, earnestly desirous of supplementing the efforts of the Local Government Board. Best of all, pauperism is decreasing, and were it not for the great social evils' which disgrace metropolitan, manufacturing and agricultural districts alike, our workhouses would become almshouses simply for the aged and infirm.

The agricultural unions are a striking contrast to those in the metropolitan and manufacturing districts — the numbers are far less, while the space for each person is greater. The views from the windows, instead of miles of roofs and chimney-pots, are often quite beautiful. Most of them too have large gardens of flowers, vegetables, and fruit, and these mean a great deal to the inmates—pure air, and a variety of vegetables for the midday meal, stewed fruit for the children, and plenty of flowers in the day and work-rooms, in the school-rooms and in the wards—turning what would be otherwise bare and cheerless into an atmosphere of perfume and brightness.

The gardens mean also better employment than oakum picking for the men, and pleasanter walks for the old women than the crowded hot streets of our towns.

The Cirencester Union occupies seven acres of land on the outskirts of the town, half a mile from the railway station, and stands in the midst of gardens.

We found ourselves at the gate at half-past ten in the morning, and while waiting for admission noticed the printed order that the inmates are allowed to see their friends on Mondays and Fridays, from one o'clock till four, and on no other occasions, except under special circumstances.

The gate being opened, our eyes rested with pleasure on a garden bright with wallflowers and other plants, and our ears were greeted with the singing of birds and the cawing of rooks, and we were almost inclined to think that we had made a mistake, and entered the grounds of a country house.

This workhouse was built in 1836, on the site of a very ancient "poor house," and consists of three blocks, with schools, workshops, and infirmary, all under the same administration.

The master and matron have been here ten years, and evidently take a pride and pleasure in their work.

As the district is purely agricultural, the inmates are chiefly of that class. The average wage of the day labourer is nine shillings a week; and as it is a matter of impossibility that the man and wife can bring up a family and save out of this for old age, even if they do get a nice little cottage and bit of garden for five pounds a year, it is but natural that they should end their days here, when work fails them through old age or sickness.

There were many more old men than women in the house the day we were there; and we heard from the matron that the old women can postpone their coming in for weeks or even months by the variety of work they can put their hands to — whereas the men can do but one kind of work, and when that fails all is over with them. Those, not agricultural labourers, who find themselves paupers, have as a rule arrived at this condition through drink.

The children here, as at other workhouses, are almost all illegitimate. The orphans, twelve at present, are boarded out in the villages round about. A lady visitor is supposed to pay constant visits to the several homes, and keep a supervision over them in order that the little ones may be well treated. However vigilantly this plan is carried out, a better plan, I think, is that adopted by the "Enfants Assistés" in Paris, which compels the foster-mother to bring the child at stated intervals to the council, who bestow a reward if they find the child altogether prosperous.

One of the great obstacles to a child's well-being in a workhouse is that just as the matron and teacher are beginning to see a decided improvement in a girl or boy, the mother may come and take them away, and, after exposing them to every kind of foul living, bring them back again. It makes the reclaiming and teaching them well-nigh hopeless.

We found everything spotlessly clean but very bare. Take the boys' day-room for example, which had stone floor, bare walls and two forms for furniture, their play-yard outside being equally bare; there was an absence of pictures and games, or of anything that would afford the slightest amusement.

We were exceedingly pleased with the schoolroom, its thirty scholars and gentle little schoolmistress, the daughter of the master and matron. The children looked happy and industrious; their sewing, writing, and spelling were good. The chaplain who lives in the town comes once a month to give religious instruction.

As a rule, the children are docile and easily managed.

For the infirmary there is a trained nurse under the authority of the matron; she has a sitting-room and bedroom, and a bell communicating with her apartments hangs in each sick ward.

Infectious diseases are not admitted, but are taken to a building a mile off, provided and governed by the sanitary authorities.

The chronic sick ward was the brightest we had seen, with its yellow quilts, gay pictures, books and flowers.

There should be, I think, a comb and brush for each bed; as it is, there are four or five brushes, and but one comb for each ward!

The children's tick ward was happily quite unoccupied.

In the nursery were four babies. One pretty little mite of two years old was fast pining away, and her mother, who was only twenty-one and of course single, had two other children in the house! We saw her helping in the kitchen with apparently no shame at her position.

One dormitory is devoted to mothers with babies, who are allowed to keep them at night until they are two years old.

There is a nice little laundry supplied with drying closets, and a separate washhouse with hot and cold water laid on.

The old people breakfast on porridge and bread, while the infirm, the laundry women and the wardswomen have bread, butter, tea, milk and sugar and at night, all except the children, have tea.

In the kitchen the inevitable pea-soup was being prepared for dinner for all the inmates, except the children, who were going to have rice and milk. A pound and a half of meat goes to the gallon of water; but it so happens that now and then they boil a large quantity of beef, and then the liquor is used instead of water, and with the addition of vegetables an exceedingly good soup is made.

The dining hall is of fair size, and here all take food together in the presence of a superintendent; and here on Sundays the chaplain holds service.

I think the food is very good and varied and well cooked. Two days in the week they have boiled bacon and two vegetables, two days meat and two vegetables, two days pea-soup, and another day beef and potatoes. The average cost per head for maintenance and clothing is 3s. 8½d. a week.

They deal with the casuals on the Berkshire system, which is that the tramp obtains from the police a pass with his name and age written on it together with his destination. This he takes to the union, and on his leaving the master fills in the name of the next union on the direct route to his destination, and also the places on the road where he may get bread. So, if a man comes with a brand new ticket, or one showing he is out of his proper route, he is deprived of his liberty for a day and made to work, as be is considered a loafer. Of course the men do what they can to circumvent this, tearing up their tickets whenever they get a chance, and sometimes the lane outside is strewn with torn-up tickets.

The employment given is stone-breaking, oakum-picking, and gardening.

The casuals are lodged in cells, each of which has a bell, and on its being rung a red indicator outside the door falls down, and is at once clearly seen by the person in charge.

Running through the grounds is the moat of the old Roman city. A nut-walk behind the front garden formsa pleasant promenade in the summer for the old people.

The matron in mentioning the trained nurses who had been sent to her spoke very strongly of their ignorance of the requirements necesssary in a workhouse infirmary nurse. She said that knowing how to make and put on a bandage was of course quite needful, but that it was by no means the only class of work required of them.

If one could get rid of the bareness of the living rooms, and introduce some healthy amusement for the children, there would be nothing to find fault with in this workhouse. Everything is open and above board, and the master and matron kind and conscientious.