The Workhouse as a centre for care and deterrence

In Ireland, claims O’Mahony,(2005), Cork’s first Workhouse was officially opened in April 1747.²⁰⁰ In practice, the Workhouse scheme operated as a combination of care and deterrence which, with rigid supervision and obedience of inmates, was found adequate to relieve distress set within parameters of scarcity dictated by the vacillating quality of annual harvests. Poor relief, locally financed through a poor rate, could only be obtained through accommodation within a Workhouse. The English interpretation of destitution which proclaimed that “the lot of the able-bodied inmate of the Workhouse should be less tolerable than that of the lowest pauper outside”, was imposed in Ireland.²⁰¹

Plate 3.4

Parsonstown Workhouse, Birr, Co. Offaly, Ireland

In the face of increasing operating costs, claims O’Mahoney (2005), between 1833 and 1836 a royal commission investigated the social and economic conditions of the poorer classes of Irish society and reported on the feasibility of operating within Ireland the

200 O’Mahony, 2005, 15.

201 Ibid, 18.

Parsonstown Workhouse was divided into male and female sides with the male inmates usually placed at the right. At the front of the site was a small entrance block whose ground floor contained a porter’s lodge, waiting hall ,and receiving rooms. Upstairs were the Guardians’ Board Room, with small dormitories to each side, and store for inmates’ own cloths in the attic above. Strict supervision and discipline were the key administrative measures within every Workhouse.

(http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peper/workhouse/Ireland/Ireland.shtml)

English Workhouse system which had evolved under the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834.²⁰² In consequence, some 163 Workhouses ²⁰³ were established throughout Ireland under the Poor Law {Ireland) Act, 1838. Architect for the many of Workhouses in England and Wales,²⁰⁴ George Wilkinson, was assigned the task of designing the majority of Workhouses in Ireland on the Southwell, Nottinghamshire, prototype model.²⁰⁵

For administrative purposes, Ireland, with 163 Workhouses in situ,²⁰⁶ was divided into 130 groups of parishes or Unions and subdivided into electoral districts. Unions were compactly designed with a market town at their centre.²⁰⁷ Following the Report of the Poor Law Inquiry Commission for Scotland, in May 1844, that country retained its long-established system of parochial relief which was essentially one of outdoor relief.

This measure was encapsulated in the Poor Law Amendment (Scotland) Act, 1845.

Consequently, no Workhouses were erected in Scotland. Although not compulsory, observes O’Connor (1995), Poor-houses distinct from Workhouses,²⁰⁸ - seventy with accommodation for 18,000 inmates - were provided by individual parishes or unions of parishes for the whole of Scotland.²⁰⁹

When the Board of Supervision for the Relief of the Poor was created under the Poor Law (Scotland) Act, 1845,²¹⁰ claims Levitt (1988), it represented an important

202 Ibid, 16.

203 Southwell Workhouse in Nottinghamshire, erected in 1824 to a design by the Rev. John Thomas Becher became the prototype for most workhouses in both England and Ireland.

Incorporated into the design was the Panopticon, or Inspection House devised by Jeremy Bentham which permitted the master and staff to supervise inmates at both work and recreation from a central point.

204 O’Connor (1995) states that 689 workhouses were built in England and Wales and that none been preserved as a historic building. This statement is incorrect since the workhouse at Southwell in Nottinghamshire, England, built in 1824, has been acquired in its original state by the National Trust in 1997 when the last inmates and staff moved out It is now open to view by the general public.

205 O’Mahony, 2005, 19.

206 O’Connor, 1995, 259-64.

207 O’Mahony, 2005, 17.

208 Scottish poor-houses were administered by the local parish and financed from the poor rate.

Nuclear pauper families occupied adequately furnished small cottages. The poor-house system was not subject to control or supervision by a Board of Guardians.

209 O’Connor, 1995, 208-11.

210 In full citation, An Act for the Amendment and better Administration of the Laws relating to the Relief of the Poor in Scotland, 1845, passed on 4 August 1845.

departure in the ordinary administration of Scotland. For the first time, Scotland had central control imposed on its welfare system; not since 1846, when the Act became effective, had the British Government allowed a principal public department north of the border.²¹¹ This new arrangement in provision for the needy did not exclude church influence in its execution, for in every ‘burghal parish’ or combination of parishes, a parochial board of managers was elected and to whom local administration of the poor law was entrusted. In the board’s composition, the magistrates were to nominate four members, and four members were to be nominated by the Kirk session.²¹²

3.8.1 Central government relief initiatives in the Scottish Highlands

With experience gained from intervention in the 1837-38 years of scarcity, the British Government was well placed to deal with severe famine conditions apparent in 1845.

Though laggard in implementation, public work schemes under the direction of the Board of Works were re-introduced 1 August 1846.²¹³ Highland road construction, canal and bridge building to improve communications in remote areas were commenced. Crofters were expected to work eight hours a day, six days a week, to earn their ration of oatmeal. Perhaps the best-known Highland ‘Destitution Road’ ²¹⁴ and

‘Hunger Bridge’²¹⁵ are those constructed by local workers creating an efficient and safe carriageway between Ullapool and Gairloch in Wester Ross.

In the interests of needy landowners loans were made available under the Drainage Act that was enacted to provide for estate improvements. To supplement military reserves of foodstuffs, Indian corn was purchased from abroad and Royal Navy ships were utilised to convey food to strategically sited depots for disbursal by local committees.²¹⁶ When the Central Board of Management for Highland Relief assumed control in February 1847, responsibility for different regions of the Highlands was delegated to the Glasgow and Edinburgh Committees or ‘sections’ as they were known.

211 Levitt, 1988, xi.

212 Lindsay, 1975, 222.

213 Donnolly, 2001, 70.

214 The ‘Destitution Road’ is commemorated in popular song by Alistair Hulet, The chorus runs:

“But there’s no use getting frantic / It’s time tae hump yer load / Across the wild Atlantic / On the Destitution Road”.

215 ‘Hunger Bridge’ is the local name for the bridge at Kinlochewe.

216 Witness, January 20, 1847.

Each had a measure of independence from the parent body. The Edinburgh Section eventually assumed responsibility for Skye, Wester Ross, the Northern Isles and the Eastern Highlands; the Glasgow Section was entrusted with Argyll, western Inverness, the Outer Hebrides and the Inner Hebrides apart from Skye. The Central Board, cited by Devine (1995), had 117 members, including the Moderators of the Church of Scotland, the Free Church and the Relief Church, the Provosts of all the major towns, several landowners, Bishop Murdoch of the Roman Catholic Church, and the principals of Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities as 'extraordinary members’.²¹⁷

3.8.2 Central government relief initiatives in Ireland

The systems of provision for the poor that had existed in England and Wales since the Elizabethan Poor Law of 1601²¹⁸ were supplanted by The Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834. This legislation was extended to Ireland by the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act, 1838, by which the government accepted the burden of providing a uniform system of poor relief. By the terms of the Act, provision was made for the establishment and regulation of lunatic asylums and work-houses, organised into ‘poor law unions’ of which 130 were set out in an equitable geographical pattern throughout the country.²¹⁹ However, the provisions of the Act were unable to deal with the unprecedented scarcity of mid-nineteenth-century Ireland. Late in 1846, The Witness focussed on the kernel of Irish destitution:

We have heard of a vast concourse numbering up to 2000 people, assembled at West Port, and proceeding to the seat of the Marquis of Sligo, for the avowed purpose of demanding work and food. ²²⁰

Such reports justify O’Grada’s (1999) contention that the Government under estimated the gravity of the crises in the worst affected areas of Ireland and the inadequacy of indoor workhouse provision and outdoor labour schemes to meet unprecedented famine that led to such measures as the promulgation of the Drainage (Ireland) Act 1846 and the Temporary Relief of Destitute Persons (Ireland) Act, 1847 (the Soup Kitchen Act)

217 Devine, 1995, 127.

218 O’Mahoney, 2005, 14. The main objectives of the 1601 poor law were to establish a sense of local responsibility, to determine a reasonable amount of relief, and to identify those people eligible for relief. It encouraged children to work and serve apprenticeships. The poor law sought the suppression of vagrancy and to provide work as a means of welfare

219 Ibid, 17.

220 Witness, September 2, 1846.

which made provision for outdoor relief contrary to the terms of the Poor Law Act, 1836 which restricted provision solely to indoor relief within the workhouse. Whilst Devine (1995) argues that the Government was determined that landowners should accept major responsibility for famine relief,²²¹ the newspapers in January 1847, could report large quantities of meal and foodstuffs despatched by the government from English seaports to Cork.²²² Though kept from public knowledge claims Kinealy (2006), the British government made secret arrangements for £100,000 worth of Indian corn and corn meal to be purchased in America and shipped to Ireland at the beginning of 1846.²²³