Ancestry UK

The End of the Workhouse

From 1913 onwards, in official documents, the term "workhouse" was replaced by "poor law institution". However, the institution itself was to live on for a good many more years.

During the First World War, many Boards of Guardians offered workhouse premises for military use, mostly as hospitals (for example at Bristol and Birmingham) but also for accommodating military personnel, prisoners of war (for example Banbury) and "aliens" (for example Islington).

The general depression in the years following the First World War, culminating in the miners' strike of 1926, put a tremendous strain on the system with some unions effectively becoming bankrupt. In some areas, where colliery owners also had influence with local Boards of Guardians, there were allegations that relief was deliberately reduced to break the strike. Conversely, where miners and union officials dominated a Board, there were complaints that the rates were being used to supplement strike funds.

Neville Chamberlain, Health Minister in the 1925 Conservative government, believed that that the poor-law system needed reforming and in 1926 pushed through a Board of Guardians (Default) Act which enabled the dismissal of a Board of Guardians and its replacement with government officials. This was followed by a further Poor Law Act in 1927, and in 1928 he introduced The Local Government Act which would in many respects bring about many of the measures proposed by the Royal Commission's Report in 1909. Essentially, this would abolish the Boards of Guardians and transfer all their powers and responsibilities to local councils. These were required to submit administrative schemes to end "poor relief" as such — "as soon as circumstances permit" — and provide more specific "public assistance" on the basis of other legislation such as the Public Health Act, the Education Act, and so on. The Act was passed on 27th March 1929 and came into effect on 1st April 1930 — a day which supposedly marked the end of the road for 643 Boards of Guardians in England and Wales.

Although some workhouse sites were closed, many institutions carried on into the 1930s virtually unaltered. Objections from Boards of Guardians and councils meant that changes were very slow in taking place. Ultimately, the 1929 Act did not succeed in abolishing the Poor Law — it merely reformed how it was administered and changed a few names. Poor Law Institutions became Public Assistance Institutions and were controlled by a committee of "guardians". However, physical conditions improved a little for the inmates, the majority of whom continued to be the old, the mentally deficient, unmarried mothers, and vagrants. Despite the official change in name, the Institutions often continued to be be referred to as workhouses.

The National Health Service Act of 1946 came into force on 5th July 1948. Even the sweeping changes that came with this had less impact than might be imagined. Some workhouse sites were retained by local councils for use as old people's homes, and again there was often little change in their operation. Other sites, particularly those with well developed medical facilities, now came under the control of Hospital Management Committees, themselves under Regional Hospital Boards, but many such establishments still carried the stigma from their workhouse days, with older people often refusing to enter what they still regarded as "the workhouse". Many of these new "hospitals" also maintained "Reception Centres for Wayfarers", i.e. casual wards for vagrants, until the 1960s.

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