England 2023- The Workhouse at Southwell

The Workhouse at Southwell 

 

When I think of England I think of town names like Canterbury or Plumpton (don’t get me started on Barton in the Beans), but when you start to really look at the map you begin to see surprising names like Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Laughten-en-le-Morthen, and Chapel-en- le-Frith. Names that express the Norman ancestry of those areas. Ashby-de-la-Zouch was on my radar due once again to genealogy. Sometimes I get lost in the names and dates of our family trees to the point that I can’t remember if things are related to my tree or my husband’s. Ashby-de-la-Zouch is one of those place names that stuck in my memory but the connection is lost. I’m pretty sure it relates to my husband’s side but it would take me hours to figure it out, hours I don’t have at the moment. Our travel for that day was going to take us very near there so we decided to go have a look and satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to know what a town called Ashby-de-la-Zouch was about. 

I wish I could say something exciting happened there but all we found were parking issues and a pub called The Shoulder of Mutton. Our intention had been to spend the afternoon roaming around the site of the ruined castle but once we realized that a large portion of our afternoon would be spent in search of parking we decided it was best to move on and check it off our list. 

The only picture I took while in Ashby-de-la-Zouch

Our next move might seem like an odd one to most people but my love of history and our interest in things that are a bit out of the ordinary prompted us to decide to spend the afternoon touring an old Workhouse. This is the equivalent of visiting Alcatraz prison or the gallows at the Tower of London. A bit morbid but so very fascinating. 

This slice of British history is the beginning of state welfare born out of the desire to help those less fortunate from a Victorian perspective. The Workhouse was meant to be dull and unwelcoming, a hard life where if able bodied, it is compulsory to work for your room and board. You get just enough help to keep you fed, clothed and housed but not so much that you wanted to stay. It was designed to separate the “pauper” from the “poor”. By definition a “pauper” is someone without any means of support- someone who must rely on the charity of others for food and shelter. While being “poor” is defined as someone with little money or goods, but has some means of shelter. The workhouse was unpleasant on purpose, it was intended to be a deterrent to all but who truly needed it. A last resort. 

Poorhouses and Almshouses existed prior to the Workhouse, but those were run by local parishes or charities- the state was not involved. Local parishes were tasked with taking care of their impoverished, elderly and sick out of the taxes of the citizens of that parish. Basically it was funded by property tax. The cost of care was steadily exceeding the amount being brought in and thus reform happened in the form of the New Poor Law of 1834. 

Ten years earlier the Reverend John Thomas Becher started an experiment that eventually became the blueprint for all future workhouses . He rallied 49 parishes to pool their resources and build the Workhouse at Southwell (it was eventually renamed Southwell Union Workhouse in 1836). This building still stands and has been left in its original state to show exactly what life was like in the workhouse. Men, women and children were separated upon arrival and lived separately. This means families were forced to live apart from each other, although they were permitted to request supervised visits. Often the able bodied were given worthless tasks just to keep them busy. This repetitive and unnecessary work was meant to discourage those who were capable of work from staying long term. Basically a workhouse was one step up from a prison with the exception of the elderly, ill or the children. The workhouse was a place for the elderly and sick without family to go to be looked after and a place for poor children to get an education. For some of these children the workhouse provided them a better life than if they were left destitute outside its walls.

We had a special interest in the workhouse and the life of the inmates inside. My husband’s great grandmother Mabel spent the first years of her life in the Ecclesall Union Workhouse in Sheffield. She and her mother Lillie entered sometime between 1897 and 1901. I can’t find the records of their arrival or departure but they are listed as inmates in the 1901 census and were out by the end of 1901 living with the man that would eventually become Lillie’s husband. I cannot speak for my husband but personally I walked around Southwell with this in mind. I wanted to imagine what life was like for this young mother and her small child. Lillie was only 4 years old when her own mother died, 18 when she gave birth to Mabel out of wedlock and 19 when her father died. The death of her father scattered her siblings to the wind and was the catalyst for her entrance to the workhouse. Alone with no family to lean on, how frightened she must have been and how desperate. But ultimately she is a story of success and determination. 

The Ecclesall Union Workhouse as it would have looked during Lillie and Mabel’s time

I must say I contemplated Lillie and Mabel while we sat at the cafe on site enjoying cold beverages and a bite to eat.  Our lives have not been without suffering and trauma, but I felt admiration for the gumption Lillie had to pull herself up by the bootstraps and improve her situation and that of her daughter. She refused to be a statistic or defined by this stint in the workhouse. I know from my mother-in-law that her grandmother Mabel found this to be a shameful period of her life.  I can’t help but view it as the opposite. Maybe it’s the American in me but I find this to be proof that you can hit rock bottom and bring yourself back up. That you can look your suffering in the face and say “not today.”  They walked out of those gates, never to return. 

Feeling a bit guilty about having a fancy beverage on the workhouse grounds

We ourselves left those gates and the workhouse behind, richer for the knowledge we gained. I spent the next 40 minutes as we made our way to my in-laws house contemplating what kind of welcome I’d receive. It had been five years since I had last seen or talked to my father-in-law. We had ended on a sour note and I wasn’t sure if he was holding a grudge. Let me be honest, I certainly was. But I was also willing to let it go if he was. I was curious to see if the war was still on or if we were going to pretend like we hadn’t had a passive aggressive argument in the bar of an off strip casino in front of a waitress named Darlene. (If you’re dying to know what I’m talking about see this post HERE).

We rolled up and I hung back. I had butterflies in my stomach because I don’t have beef with anyone, at least not openly- I will fight with you brilliantly in my head and shoot ice out of my eyes like invisible daggers. If I decide you’re dead to me then you are well and truly dead to me. And usually you deserve it. I am the picture of non-confrontational unless pushed and once pushed you have awoken the kraken. 

Me following with trepidation 

To my surprise my father-in-law truly acted like nothing had ever happened. In the first five minutes he complained to me about how I addressed the envelopes for our Christmas cards, gave us tea in mismatched mugs and told us about the new loveseat they had bought just for us to sit on every other year. All par for the course. My eyebrows shot up and I put my ice daggers away. The war was put to bed and I realized pretty quickly that my father-in-law hadn’t been phased by our tiff because he was used to rubbing people the wrong way. Truly, he pub hops because he overstays his welcome and manages to piss someone off. I’m still sad that we can’t go back to The Ship at Bawtry. 

The Ship

We ended our day at our airbnb and settled in for a week of family visits and the occasional manor house. 

Our airbnb for the week