Birmingham and its Workhouses"The Birmingham Historian" 1989 |
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Knatchball's Act of 1723 empowered parishes to erect workhouses to house members of the parish unable to support themselves. Over the next 150 years buildings sprang up that were to be the focus of poor relief for two centuries. Frequently feared and hated by its occupants, the workhouse seems to epitomise that Dickensian mixture of charity and harshness that was Victorian England. Yet many provided the buildings and structure from which our older hospitals and ultimately the National Health Service grew. The area we now call Birmingham had scattered across it a number of such institutions, some substantial complexes of buildings which survive today, others long since disappeared. The records they have left vary similarly. In the following article we propose to list the workhouses of Greater Birmingham and to indicate as far as is presently possible where they were and what records survive from them. We anticipate that readers may well be able to add to the sum of knowledge here presented and any further information is welcome. In the seventeenth century the administration of poor relief was handled by a body of overseers and paid for out of the rates. Funds were divided between the upkeep of the poorhouse and out-relief for those able to live outside such an institution. These two expenses laid an increasingly heavy burden upon smaller parishes and their ratepayers. All this was to change in 1834. The great Poor Law Amendment Act of that year, in addition to introducing the dreaded 'workhouse test' and severely limiting out-relief, united parishes into unions in order to pool resources for poor relief. From this date many of the smaller parish workhouses begin to disappear. Birmingham and Aston, because of their size and population, remained single-parish unions, though of course in ecclesiastical terms both were already agglomerates of smaller parishes. The newly-formed Kings Norton Union incorporated the parishes of Kings Norton, Northfield, Harborne and Edgbaston. Some of the new unions cut across the boundaries of what later became Greater Birmingham. In the north, Handsworth was included in West Bromwich Union: in the east, Sheldon became part of the Meriden Union, while Yardley was incorporated into Solihull Union. In this case, even the county boundary was ignored. It is during the imposition of this new system that problems of chronology begin to dog the researcher. In the case of Sheldon, it seems that the parish had never possessed its own workhouse and the new union simply described a situation already in operation. Elsewhere, as in Handsworth and Kings Norton, parish workhouses remained open until a union workhouse could be built or reconstructed. From the time that poor law unions were established, roughly 1836, overseers' records are replaced by those of the new guardians of the poor. In the absence of distinct records surviving from the workhouses themselves, which is generally the case, these are the chief source of information. Registers of inmates exist only from Yardley and Northfield, though additional lists can be obtained from the decennial censuses. For the Birmingham Workhouse some printed material survives: annual accounts, rules and regulations and library catalogues.
Birmingham UnionThe first Birmingham Town Book contains the proposal, dated 16th May 1727, that a workhouse be built to 'set to work the poor of Birrningham for their better maintenance'.1 It was erected c.1734 at a cost of £1,173 3s 5d.2 Situated at the lower end of Lichfield Street, now part of Corporation Street, it stood on a site now occupied by the Victoria Law Coutts. Two wings were added later in the century: the left (1766) served as an infirmary, the right (1779) as a place of labour.3 'The Orders and Rules . . 'published in 1784, suggest a highly disciplined institution, with strict rules for behaviour and an exact timetable.4 Deviations from these rules were punished, typically by the loss of a meal. Some modifications were made in a second set of regulations of C. 1820, for example, reducing the number of prayer meetings from three to one a week.5 The diet was fixed; clean shirts were issued every Sunday; wards and apartments were washed twice a week, three times in the summer months. An early account book for 173948, covering both the workhouse and out-relief, gives valuable details of life and death at the institution.6 In a not untypical week in October 1742, £6 14s Sd was spent on coffins and the burial of inmates. However, not everything was so gloomy. In March of that year 6(1 was spent 'bringing Cock Robin to Workhouse'. Quite what this curious ceremony involved is unclear. The Lichfield Street Workhouse was designed to contain 600 inmates but the rapid increase in the urban poor obliged the overseers to reconsider their options, as funds channelled into out-relief bit deeper into their budget. Two solutions were found. In 1797 an Asylum for the Infant Poor opened in Summer Lane to which many of the workhouse children were transferred.7 Secondly, work began on the construction of a new Union Workhouse on Birmingham Heath. Finally opened on 29th March 1852, its key features were the perfect isolation of all classes and sexes of inmates.8 Originally built to house 1,160 persons, at the time of the 1881 census there were 2,291 inmates, not including a staff of 86. The overall cost of its construction and furnishing was £44,476.9 Again, in the absence of workhouse accounts, our chief source for the expenditure is in the minutes of the Board of Guardians up to 1930.10 In 1889 a new infirmary opened, renamed Dudley Road Hospital in 1912, when the workhouse itself became Western Road House. After this date it was no longer considered as a workhouse, but as a Poor Law Institution accommodating elderly and infirm paupers. In 1948 the building became Summerfield Hospital.
Aston UnionThe parish workhouse of Aston lay, not in Aston itself, but opposite the village green in Erdington, on the site now occupied by the public library. The exact date of its construction is not clear, though a levy to raise the cost of it was held in June 1700.11 Interestingly, this document uses the term 'workhouse' rather than poorhouse', though this was long before the 1723 Act. It is perhaps an early example of Aston's uncompromising attitude towards poor relief. The building remained in use as the parish and later the union workhouse until the 1860s when new union premises were built at Gravelly Hill.12 Although the early history of Erdington workhouse is hazy, the Aston Board of Guardians' minutes provide much detailed information on life there and the overcrowded conditions that led to the purchase of eight acres of land from one Richard Fowler for a new site.13 The cost was immense, but considerable sums had been raised from the sale of superseded poorhouses at Curdworth and Minworth (1837), Wishaw and Erdington (1876).14 The move allowed the union greatly to increase the number of inmates from 123 (on the 1851 census) to over 500. The claim made in 1873 that Aston Union's expenses were lower than any other in the country is fully borne out by the Guardians' minutes.15 Tendered contracts were invariably awarded to the lowest bidder, surplus furniture was sold off and the clothes of dead paupers were stored, presumably for future use. In December 1866, the Workhouse Master was refused permission to provide oranges and nuts for the children on the grounds that this constituted an unwarranted burden on the ratepayer. Kings Norton UnionThe union formed in 1836 incorporated the parishes of Kings Norton, Northfield, Beoley, Harborne and Edgbaston. Each already possessed a workhouse of its own. Overseers' accounts from Kings Norton survive from 1774, but the third volume has the significant title-page: 'This House was opened for the Reception of the Poor, January 13th 1803, by John Saunders Governor. 16 According to the Tithe Apportionments, this body paid rent on a yard and gardens located on the road from Cofton (Rednal Road), lying behind buildings on Green Wharf Road.17 This must have been the site of King.~ Norton's first workhouse. In 1836 the rent for garden and buildings was £45 per annum.18 Some indication of the size of the establishment can be gleaned from the census returns. In 1841 there were 102 inmates, rising to 141 in 1871. Along with Yardley, Northfield is the workhouse best served by surviving records. Registers of inmates (1830-37), general accounts (1801-34) and clothing accounts (1828-35) preserve an intimate picture of life atone of the city's smallest of such institutions, though its whereabouts remain in doubt.19 The accounts reveal that the workhouse possessed a garden where vegetables such as cabbages and potatoes were grown. Most workhouses employed their inmates in the cloth trade, sewing, weaving and making garments. At Northfield, appropriately for the area, nails were made and a small profit drawn from their sale. Among items noted in the accounts for 1815, we may mention the purchase of cowslip wine and a pint of brandy for a woman in labour, though this may have been out-relief. The largest regular expense is the cost of burial, with the additional provision of ale for the funeral. The earliest references in the Overseers' accounts and the fact that the workhouse accounts survive from the same date suggest that the building was opened in c.1801.20 The date of its closure can be stated more exactly. On 4th October 1837 the six men and six women and children (a little below the average number) were transferred to Kings Norton Workhouse.21 References to Harborne Workhouse are scanty. It stood, according to Presterne's Harborne: Once Upon A Time 'on the other side of the Lord's Wood Road, between Gilhurst Lane and the field path', though there was also overspill accommodation at the Pass House at the top of Moor Pool Lane.22 At the establishment of the Union it remained in temporary use as a workhouse, the Guardians paying a rent of £35 a year.23 After its sale the building became a manufactory for washing-powder.24 The parish of Bdgbaston owned a poorhouse and gardens situated on Harrison Road, near the junction with Somerset Road.25 However, the Overseers' accounts Contain a number of references to supplies, particularly coal, delivered to 'the mass house' in 1803 and later.26 The term was normally used to identify a Catholic chapel, but the concern of Poor Law officers with the buildings suggests that it may have been used to house poor, possibly Catholic, members of the community. The tithe map of 1827 indicates that it stood on Pritchatts Road.27 By the end of 1868 land had been purchased for the construction of a new union workhouse in what later became Raddlebarn Road.28 The work was completed in July 1872 at a total cost of £27,758 5s 8d and arrangements made for the transfer of inmates and the sale of the old workhouse.29 By 1881 there was a total of 327 individuals lodged there. When the Birmingham and Kings Norton Unions combined after 1911, it became known as Birmingham Union Workhouse. In 1922 it became Selly Oak Hospital, the former workhouse now being part of the physiotherapy department. HandsworthLack of firm evidence is an acute problem in the case of Handsworth. F W Hackwood would appear to be correct in his claim that the land purchased by the Overseers in 1794 was the site of the workhouse in use by 1811.30 The situation would appear to be that bounded by College Road, Slack Lane and Oxhill Road, near to the Old Town Hall. At this point, however, complications begin to set in. References in the Overseers Accounts for 1814 indicate that Handsworth had two poorhouses, a larger and a smaller.31 These intriguing notes, unique in our study, require further research and clarification. The 1834 Act resulted in the union of Randsworth, Wednesbury, Oldbury, Warley and West Bromwich, centred upon the last named. West Bromwich already owned a workhouse, containing 80 inmates at the time of the 1841 census, but Handsworth residents were not removed there until substantial modifications and improvements were effected during the 1840s.32 YardleyThe masters of Yardley dutifully preserved many of their records: workhouse accounts (1808-37), clothing accounts (1810-22) and a register of inmates (18l2-25).33 Built in 1808 by James Smith of New Strect at a cost of £537 14s, the building stood at the corner of Holder Road and Coventry Road.34 It was rented from the Yardley Charity Estates at £12 per annum and remained in use until 1838 when the Union Workhouse in Solihull was in full operation.35 The four volumes of accounts reveal much concerning the diet and lifestyle of the inhabitants. They show that the workhouse brewed its own beer and that the garden was worked to produce a variety of vegetables: turnip, carrot, mustard and cress, radish, lettuce, and Dutch savory. In addition., the community consumed in one week an average of ten gallons of milk and 60 pounds of beef and mutton. Gin and wine were purchased for the sick. We must presume, as at Birmingham, that alcohol, tea and tobacco were denied to the able-bodied. The regular expenditure of &i a week on shaving suggests that an individual was employed to keep hair and beards under control. This was certainly the case at Birmingham. Clothing accounts remain only from here and Northfield. They record both the provision of items for inmates and the quantities of material, particularly calico, for working into garments.By the middle of the nineteenth century, the number of inmates in the workhouses of Birmingham was passing 2,000. As poor relief became increasingly concentrated upon such institutions, that number would soon be doubled. The impact of these establishments on the urban and semi-rural economy of the area was considerable. It is time that their importance was again recognised and assessed. CHRIS UPTON and JOYCE FELLOWSReferences
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