Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
REMARKABLE
This is where Kent’s workhouses, as portrayed in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, were and what they did
On February 15, 1911, a happy couple exchanged their vows and walked down the aisle as man and wife. But this was no ordinary love story. William Hennan, a sprightly 94, and Fanny Wadhams, 80, were no strangers to marriage - both had been wed three times before. But their eyes had met and love blossomed while both were inmates of the Medway Union workhouse in Chatham.
Courtesy of the introduction, two years earlier, of the old age pension, both were able to see out their years independent from the rather grim-sounding precursor of the benefits system we know today.
But the venue for a love story is not quite the image many of us have of life in the workhouse.
For most, the picture we conjure up derives from the pen of Kent’s most celebrated literary son, Charles Dickens; captured by Oliver Twist asking ‘for more’ gruel from his mean taskmasters. Certainly Dickens was no fan of the workhouse - he believed conditions were dragged down to deter the most in-need of attending and thus save money - but a little over 100 years ago they were the refuge for the poorest and most infirm in society.
The Victorian workhouses were the evolution of a system which had been called upon due to plague and war over the previous 200 years. Publiclyfunded, they were an effort to cope with rising levels of poverty - putting people to use in exchange for meagre rations and a roof over their head. For many it was an unpalatable option but the only one available to them in an era before state hand-outs and social housing.
Today, many of those buildings - many grand and imposing by modern standards - still exist, albeit long since repurposed. Many more demolished in the name of progress.
And while Willy and Fanny (no sniggering at the back) found love in one of the dozens which once stood in Kent, for many they stand as a reminder of a by-gone era often only today remembered courtesy of Dickens’ pen.
So before we look at just where they once were in Kent a (very brief, don’t be put off) history lesson on just how the workhouse came to exist and what the conditions were like. Their roots can be traced all the way back to the late 14th century when the Poor Law Act of 1388 was introduced to tackle appalling labour shortages following the Black Death (think Covid on acid). It aimed to prevent labourers from leaving their towns and would ultimately result in the state making efforts to care for the poor.
The first workhouse, as such, would emerge in the mid17th century and the idea was relatively simple; to provide a place where those unable to support themselves could do work in exchange for food and eventually accommodation too.
Paid for through local taxes, the facilities were basic but designed to reward work and deter idleness.
In 1723 the Workhouse Test Act was passed into legislation. Often known as Knatchbull’s Act, it was spearheaded by Sir Edward Knatchbull, a Kent MP who lived in Mersham Le Hatch, near Ashford, to ensure those who wanted to receive ‘poor relief’ had to enter a workhouse and undertake a set amount of work. The test was intended to prevent irresponsible claims on a parish’s ‘poor’ funds and act as a deterrent against not finding work. It saw a huge boom in workhouses around the country.
By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century, there was mass unemployment and matters were made worse by a series of poor harvests which left many struggling to make ends meet as agricultural jobs dried up. Enter the New Poor Law of 1834, which rubbed Dickens up the wrong way but paved the way for the workhouse boom during the Victorian era. It aimed to only give aid to those who toiled in exchange for a roof over their head and food. Each workhouse was run by a union - a collection of local parishes - and overseen by a board of guardians.
In short, if you were able to work and needed support, you had no option but to attend the workhouse. For many it was seen as a great source of shame.
The workhouses were self-contained communities offering everything from classrooms for the young to mortuaries for the deceased. They often had farms with livestock to raise food, baked bread on site and would provide a base for families - although parents and children were often separated from one another during their stay. Indeed, much of the work offered went towards ensuring the workhouses’ smooth running.
But this was no holiday camp.
Other jobs those attending were expected to do included wood-chopping, grinding corn or stone-breaking. Often backbreaking stuff but designed to generate the funds to keep the workhouses breaking even. As time went on, the workhouses would increasingly become a place of refuge for the sick and elderly and it is perhaps little wonder that many would become the sites of future hospitals after an act of law in 1929 saw workhouse infirmaries taken over by local authorities. By 1948 the National Assistance Act ushered in a new era of government support for those in need and the last of the workhouses disappeared. Worth noting is that was just a little over 70 years ago.
But their imprint remains on many of the county’s towns