A Visit to Swindon Workhouse

A Visit to Swindon Workhouse

Swindon workhouse is an agreeable surprise. A three-mile drive across pretty country brings you to a grey and white stone building, approached by an avenue of trees, and standing in the midst of a garden gay with flowers, and well stocked with fruit trees and vegetables. Violets and primroses perfumed the air. Three railed-off portions of grass, with paths and seats, were devoted to the men, women, and children. The house and gardens occupy eight acres of land.

It was built forty years ago to accommodate four hundred and sixty inmates, but at the time of our visit there were but one hundred and sixty there. Here, as at Cirencester and Gloucester, the old, the young, and the sick are all under the same roof. At Swindon they take in infectious cases also, but nurse them in an isolated building on the further side of the garden.

The orphans are boarded out in various villages, and a lady on the spot is asked to keep watch over the one child near to her. This is better than in other districts, but still not so effective as the plan adopted in Paris.

Whole families of paupers have taken up their abode here: one man whom we saw came in quite young; went out, and came back married; he is old now, but still here, and so are his children.

The inmates go out when they please by giving seventy-two hours' notice.

The people who find their way here, as a rule, belong to the agricultural and manufacturing class; those of the latter more often than not through want of thrift and indulgence in drink.

There were thirty old women and twenty-one young ones in the house the day we were there, and the knowledge that these last can come in when they please has a very demoralising effect.

The master, matron, porter, trained nurse, and industrial trainer are the only paid officers. The work of the house is done by paupers.

The board-room and passages are abundantly supplied with beautifully made mats — the work of the inmates.

The old women, of whom the majority are widows, were sitting in a very cheerful room, busily employed in making corduroy trousers and coats, for one of the features of this house is that every single article of clothing for men, women, and children is made by the inmates. One old woman, a beautiful worker, volunteered that they were all quite happy.

On my asking how such an industrious and good worker happened to be here, the answer came — which I feared — Drink.

The day nursery was the brightest and most home-like of all that had come under our notice. There were plenty of toys, the gifts principally of the Great Western Railway workpeople; and in the boys' dayroom we were delighted to see cricket bats.

The workpeople on the Great Western take a deep interest in this workhouse. They collect among themselves a penny a week from each person for some weeks in the year, and with the produce take the old people into Swindon Park for a day's outing, and give them besides sixpence each. At Christmas they give young and old a treat — the foreman of the works and a certain number of the men being appointed to be present to see that their wishes are carried out.

The older children attend the Board Schools in the village, and being dressed neatly in dark blue serge (a kind thought of the matron) instead of the usual dingy brown derry, they are not distinguishable from the children they mix with.

The clothes' store room might with truth be labelled Industry and Ingenuity. Coats, trousers, dresses — in fact, everything made in the house — were here neatly folded in compartments, ready for use: there were tiny stays made out of bits torn from the flannel or ends of cloth neatly joined together, kettle holders made out of bits of corduroy left from making the trousers, and boys' caps made of bits of serge left from the girls' dresses; every strip of material was most ingeniously worked up.

Entering the old men's ward we were greeted by the sight of the first clock we had seen in a workhouse ward, and we found a second before we had finished our round.

The beds are stuffed with cocoa-nut fibre, which is, I think, hard and uncomfortable, notwithstanding that the tick is laced up so as to allow the hand to pass in and pick it.

The food is good; no stimulants are allowed, milk and sugar being given instead.

In the summer the children have plenty of fruit: a basket of strawberries being a frequent treat. The value of the garden produce consumed by the inmates during the last half year was 46l. 16s. 6d.

The trained nurse evidently has a good deal of influence over the sick people, whom she keeps absolutely clean and comfortable.

The matron was greeted with smiles of welcome everywhere, and her influence, especially over the young mothers, is of the utmost service. She spends every gift she possesses, even her voice, which is sweet, upon the inmates. When she has five minutes to spare she goes into a ward and sings a hymn or a ballad to the old and the sick, whom it cheers and comforts.

Three-fourths of the old men are over eighty, and one old woman of eighty-nine years of age does an immense amount of needlework and without the use of spectacles.

But for one or two things — for example the children sleeping two in a bed — I should say this was one of the best workhouses and least depressing of any we had seen.

For work for the casuals old railway sleepers are bought at fourteen shillings a ton, which being chopped up yield a good profit.