Ancestry releases Poor Law records from Bedfordshire

A new set of historic records of the poor of Bedfordshire has been digitised on Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk).

Among the new set of workhouse and Poor Law records are admission and discharge registers, staff registers, out-relief records, removal orders and apprenticeship indentures.

They cover five Poor Law unions: Ampthill, Bedford, Biggleswade, Leighton Buzzard and Luton.

Only a few records can currently be searched by name, but the digitised documents are available to browse and indexes will be added in 2021.

People who couldn’t afford healthcare would sometimes go to Poor Law union hospitals for medical care, and in some cases died there. The records in the collection that have already been indexed include the death records of these patients. One record from Three Counties Hospital near Arlesey, for example, shows that Adelaide Litchfield, a housekeeper, aged 63, died of bronchopneumonia on 25 November 1927.