A Visit to Northwich Union Workhouse (1891)

A VISIT TO THE NORTHWICH UNION WORKHOUSE.

Mr Pritchard, the Master of the union house had given an open invitation, and the offer was taken up, although on the day in question, the visit was unexpected by the Master. The house was built in 1837, and fronts the London Road. Its little clock tower and its weather cock, with the points of the compass above, are familiar landmarks of Northwich. The frontage, with its small leaded panes, neat porch, mellow old bricks, clock tower, and old-fashioned garden in front, go to make up a quaint effect, which many would regret to see entirely swept away.

Passing through the plain tiled lobby, we come to the centre of the house to find an octagonal shaped kitchen, from which windows look into four airing yards — the men's, the women's, the boys' and the girls'. The different wings, which form the building, radiate from the central octagon. The rooms above form the residence of the Master and Matron. In this kitchen we found Mrs Pritchard, busy cutting out blue check gingham dresses for the women in the hospital. She showed us also the Foden — a blue striped cotton material, which is used for the women not in the hospital. The old women, however, have dresses of Winsey, as being warmer. At another table the house porter was cutting bread with a machine — that is to say a long knife working as a lever, up and down in a slot, and slicing the loaves into great hunks nearly two inches thick. This was to go with the soup, the savoury smell of which was coming from the adjoining cooking kitchen. Entering we found a great 'Benham' range, some 12 feet in length, with ample convenience for boiling and steaming food, besides a good big oven for roasting at the end. In addition to soup for the inmates, there was rice pudding, mutton broth, and milk and bread cooking for some of the invalids. Behind the range, and of the same length was a long boiler for producing steam for various purposes besides cooking, such as heating baths, etc. A copper cylinder above affords a constant supply of boiling water for that part of the house.

The dining room is a long chamber, capable of seating about 100, with white washed timbers overhead and painted walls. It is sufficiently lofty (about 11 feet), but until recently there was little possibility of getting rid of the smell of bygone dinners, as the ancient windows, which were supposed to slide, decline to shift under ordinary persuasions. The place can now be thoroughly ventilated by opening the casements. Mr Pritchard, when he came here some six or seven years ago, found the inmates seated at long tables, which ran the length of the room. This arrangement did not allow the whole of the inmates being seen, — and they require supervision during meals — so that Mr Pritchard designed an alteration to cross benches, at which the inmates all sit facing one way, so that an officer in charge can see them each and all.

There were clean cloths on the tables — in fact fresh cloths are put on three times a week. The Guardians might possibly effect some slight improvement here, by putting backs to the benches as a bit of comfort for the aged and infirm. The younger children dine separately.

Above the dining room is the chapel, very plainly furnished with benches, a painted pulpit and reading desk, an American organ, which is played for service by Mr Pritchard, and a communion rail, behind which are two old-fashioned looking black painted tables of the Commandments. The Revd C W Packer, vicar of St Paul's, is the chaplain and very popular with the inmates.

Going out into the women's yard, which was being used for drying purposes, we crossed to the wash house and laundry. The laundry has a good big ironing stove with a large iron flue, which heats the air of the lofty apartments, and high up in the air are racks thickly hung with the grey stockings of the inmates, aprons and other clothing. Larger articles are, of course, dried outside when the weather is favourable. In the adjoining place — the wash house — there is a range of washing places along under the windows, and a large copper boiler in the corner for boiling clothes. Washing day is every day at the work house, Friday, Saturday and Sunday excepted. There is a duplicate set of under clothes for every inmate in the house, and dresses for the women. Each week they put on a fresh change. Bedding likewise is in duplicate, and clean sheets are put on each week. That cleanliness is next to godliness was apparent throughout. Every place was scrupulously clean and sweet.

Each inmate on his or her admission, is initiated in the Order of The Bath. The look of horror on some faces when they are first informed of this is, we learn, comical, and if there be a language of looks the expression is "Oh deal; now they are going to kill me outright". The state as to filth and vermin in which some old neglected people arrive, on their entering the house is indescribable. To have not washed the body for years and years is a common state of things with them. The bath makes such a change in them that their old acquaintances would hardly know them. The change of colour alone is very great. In fact, they hardly know themselves, and come out of the water quite new beings. Better off in the work house! — I should think so. Of course I speak of neglected and ailing old people, unable to take proper care of themselves — not of those who have a little home of their own, and are looked after as they should be, and maintained by their children or friends.

Well, to return to the work house. As I said, there was a clean change of clothing for all once a week. Next, we looked in at the day room for women, which is lofty enough at any rate, being twenty feet high with benches all round. There were few women about, and almost every one we saw was old and decrepit. In fact, there were only three able bodied women in the house for washing and laundry work. Going upstairs, in one room were ten beds, not all occupied. In fact, I may as well say here that the appearance of the house throughout was not that of a place at all crowded. The house was built for 150, and it has about 90 inmates at present. In another bedroom were eight beds, and there was still another room into which beds could be put if necessary. These dormitories are not lofty, and though they were remarkably sweet and clean now, they are likely to get very stuffy and close at night. It is only since the Committee of Inspection has been round that the windows have been hinged, so they can be open during the day to air the room, when the beds are made. The beds were most comfortable, and the inmates of course make their own. Coming out of the dormitory, we noticed a key in a little glass case against several doors. This is for the use in case of fire, when the glass can be broken and the key obtained to unlock the door and escape.

Going downstairs again, we crossed the infants' yard, (a wide and ample space), and entered the infants' day room, at that hour unoccupied, as the youngsters all go to school — some to St Paul's National School, others to the Leftwich Infants School, and others to the Catholic School. The children's day room is the brightest room in the house. The walls are decorated with dolls, each hung up in its place between pleasant coloured pictures. The walls are nicely coloured, and on either side of the fireplace are shelves, on which are visible a Noah's Ark, dolls' houses, and various other toys. The shoes are on a shelf by themselves. There is evidently here a place for everything, and everything in its place. Miss Smith, the assistant matron, is in charge of the children, and does wonders with them, as we all know who attend the Christmas gathering and hear the recitations and singing. There are presently about 25 children in the house. There are several infants in arms also, and these we saw after in the nursery in the women's hospital, in charge of the nurse, some in old fashioned wooden cradles. Six or seven cradles were there, though not all full, and in one was a little thing which had just been deserted by its father, after the death of its mother. Another very bonny little thing, which the nurse seemed fond of had just wakened up, and was staring with wide open blue eyes to see the strangers present. We next went up into the children's dormitories, and were delighted with them. They looked so fresh, clean and pretty. In one long room, which contained ten beds, the sun light was coming in across the pretty white and pink counterpanes (folded, by the way, so as to serve as valances). These pink counterpanes showed very prettily against a primrose green dado, while the upper part of the wall in violet blue wash gave a very clean and cool effect. Not only was the place as "clean as nip", whatever that is, but each bed was thoroughly comfortable, there being in each case a spring mattress under the bedding — more clean, more durable, more wholesome than flock or straw.

The boys' dormitory is at the other end of the wing, and Miss Smith's bedroom is placed between them, so that by means of little windows on either side she can see at once if anything is going wrong amongst her young flock. In the boys' dormitory we had a look at the big closet, or pigeon hole cupboard, which answers as the boys' wardrobe. Here we saw the clothing neatly wrapped up, as were the suits, which are mostly sailor suits, such as are ordinarily worn by children. The material is purchased in quantity, and is made up in the house with the aid of inmates, at a very trifling cost, while the children going to school are not branded with the ordinary "work house cut". There were in the cupboard straw hats for the summer, and mittens or gloves for the winter, besides lots of new suits cut up and rolled together ready for the making. These little suits made in the house this way, only cost 3/- to 4/- ( I 5p to 20p) each. The girls in the house are made useful in helping with the sewing, and they are also taught to make their beds and help with the house work, thus earning the Government grant for Industrial training, which grant pays two thirds of the Industrial trainer's salary. The boys when they come back from school, are employed in mat making, and sometimes in garden work. The height of the children's dormitories is about nine feet. The boys' yard is about 25 yards square, affords plenty of space for play, and is fitted with horizontal bars, but the blue tiles did not look safe for falling down upon.

The women's hospital joins up to the house and the wing of the house nearest to it is the men's hospital. This hospital proved the weak spot of the institution. Entering the front door of the women's hospital my nostrils were saluted with a faint smell of what I recognised at once as a bad drain. The smell came, as I was told, from the back where the drainage is very old and defective.

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Going along the passages, still in the women's hospital, he continues, we entered a room full of beds, where six old women were at work making gingham dresses, only one, who is paralysed, being in bed. The old ladies, who ranged from 60 to 80, seemed cheerful enough. The windows on one side of the room, which look into the men's yard, were frosted, but on the side towards the river; where there is a bright prospect, the frosted panes have been taken away and transparent glass put in to give them a view of the Navigation of the Weaver. The room is decorated with nice coloured pictures and mottoes. The dado is painted in fawn colour, the walls are violet blue, and there are shelves holding a variety of fancy crocks, which suggests that these old girls on high days and holidays give afternoon teas.

Passing through a door which is always kept locked, we get into the men's hospital, which has several wards leading one out of the other. Here, by the way, the poor old men seemed to be hard put to it to pass their time, as there was no sewing for them to do. Here there are 21 beds, and 20 of them are occupied, and here, as in the women's hospital, the great want is a day room, in which the inmates can sit, work or read during the day while their beds are being aired, instead of which they occupy the same room day and night — a really most objectionable state of affairs. A new hospital, or a vast improvement upon the old one, is evidently most urgently needed. Sanitary improvements with regard to the closets were here in progress.

We now go up into the men's dormitories. The upper one is the worst room in the house, being only about eight feet high. In this room it would certainly be an improvement to open the roof and ceiling higher up, exposing the timbering. However the men's dormitory is not fully occupied, which of course makes more air space available for each occupant. Coming down into the men's yard we found four or five old men in the yard and day room. There were very few young men, and such as there were, were not capable of a day's work, being imbeciles, or otherwise disabled. This work house, at any rate, does not rest under the stigma of harbouring the able bodied and idle. In the adjoining room Oakum picking was going on. "Why not a few chairs, instead of so many benches?" I asked. "Bless you", said the Master, "they'd be broken directly".

There is a nice garden at the back of the house, which furnishes all the vegetables used in the house, except the bulk of the potatoes, of which great quantities are used, and which are bought wholesale. There are tanks in the garden which collect the house drainage; they are cleaned out fortnightly,. and the use of their contents keeps the soil fertile, and saves the purchase of manure; but there is a drawback with them, because the wind sometimes gets back from the drains, and blows the sewer gas back into the house. Some alteration is therefore required to prevent this. In this garden is situated the fever hospital, a comparatively new and isolated building, not in use at the present, and in fact seldom if ever used. In any new scheme for hospital improvement surely this place might be made available, and the fever accommodation, so little required, be provided say in a cottage in some odd corner of the ground. The pigs looked very well in their roomy, well-kept brick floored sty. Passing on round the back of the work house wall we came to the Vagrant's or Tramp ward. This consists of a long low building, with a corridor on one side, off which are lock-up cells in which the stone is broken — 8 cwt being the task — and on the other side are the sleeping cells, also "lock-up". I could not but wonder that men are to be found, who for the mere sake of a night's shelter will break 8 cwt of stone, and remain in solitary confinement the whole day. The regulation is that they must stay two nights — on a diet which consists of half a pound of bread and a mug of best water for supper; with water and bread for breakfast, bread and cheese for dinner, and bread and water again for supper. The stone takes half a day to break — less with old hands used to the road, but longer ordinarily. The stones have to be broken small enough to go through two inch holes in an iron grid. The bed consists of a nice polished plank, set at a gentle slope, with one blanket, and two cotton quilts, and a nice clean night-gown. The cell is heated in winter with hot water pipes. After the Tramp has done his task of work, he lies down on this couch, and spends the afternoon and evening in meditation. Strange as it may appear the Tramps stand this test, and seem even to like it. I suppose it freshens them up. The work and the frugal diet must be a change for them after so much beer, liberty, and broken victuals. I forgot to mention that they have a bath on coming in, and that their clothes, which are frequently "all alive!, alivo", are stoved, disinfected, and denuded of animal life. They stay their two nights — unless they happen to escape through a broken grid — and get away in the morning quite fresh, and nice and ready for some more devilment. These Tramp wards are a "tramps" hotel, with bed, breakfast and attendance all for nothing. Honest working men who can satisfy the Master that they are really likely to lose a job if kept more than a day, are allowed to go, but the Master is well up to the dodges of these gentry, and has so often had his good nature abused, that the exceptions to the two days' detention are now rare. Why do men care to undergo this discipline? — the answer is in one word — Drink! For that is the explanation of the existence of the Work house itself.

The general impression produced upon me by what I had seen, was that the house was exceedingly well managed, and that it was kept wonderfully clean, with a body of inmates almost exclusively aged and infirm, and that the children are most successfully dealt with and trained. As to the house itself my impression was that it was an old, out-of-date structure, a great part of which really wants pulling down and re-building — especially the hospital part of it, and dormitories. This is quite an independent opinion, without suggestion from the Master or anyone else. But so far from a work house of 600 or even 300, being required, it would be a pure waste of money in view of the present decline of pauperism all over the country, and the fact that the house has only 90 inmates. Never at the worst time has this house had more than 150 in it, and although the Guardians have struck off 230 cases from their outdoor lists the inmates are fewer than last year. The present site, if properly utilised, will afford both house and hospital accommodation, but the real need is for a complete re-modelling of the structure. Meanwhile Mr and Mrs Pritchard, the Master and Matron, Miss Smith, the Assistant Matron, and all the other officers are carrying on the old house, in spite of considerable drawbacks, with a success that is worthy of the highest praise.