Hello and welcome to the National Trust podcast. I'm James Grasby and today I'm in Nottinghamshire to visit a very grand building capable of sleeping a lot of people. But despite the number of beds in the property, I'm visiting today and a huge kitchen garden, this is not somewhere you'd have wanted to visit in its heyday. In fact, if you turned up at the Workhouse, you'd have fallen nearly as low as you could. And in the Victorian era, that wasn't a very nice place to be.
I'm, I'm slightly bewildered I have to say looking at this great Georgian building, brick, three stories slate roof, very handsome front door painted in blue, casement windows prettily arranged. This doesn't look to me like doom and gloom.
Hello, James, I'm Fiona Lewin and I'm the Senior Collections and House Officer here at the Workhouse infirmary in Southwell, or Southwell as the locals like to call it.
Fiona it's a pleasure to meet you. I've come up a leaf line lane through this what looks like an ornamental garden and in the background, this great Georgian building.
It would have felt very desperate actually, if you were stood in this spot 200 years ago, people who came here were rock bottom destitute. You can imagine yourself walking up this path, not quite knowing what's going to happen to you, but knowing that your future could be quite bleak here.
Fiona, history is clearly woven out of documents and places, tangible places, and this great building has now become really a monument, a memorial, to people whose lives could have vanished into oblivion.
Yes. It really does stand as a testament to the, probably, thousands of people who would have lived in this building and buildings like it all up and down the country. And many more of us can trace our family history back to institutions like this as opposed to the grand country houses, unfortunately. But by the end of the day, James, you'll have a much clearer idea of the types of people who lived in the
Workhouse. To begin with your tour, we're going to discover what it would have been like for you as a single man coming to the Workhouse back then. So we're going to wizz you back to 1871 which is a census year. So we know there was an inmate called William Antcliffe and you're going to be him.
Fiona. I'll be pleased to get out of this rain. But did you say an inmate.
That's what you'd be known as when you arrived at the Workhouse. So I'm going to take you around now to the entrance where the paupers arrived. I'm going to go and take you to meet the master who in 1871 was a man called George Shaw.
I feel a heavy feeling coming over me.
That's probably fair, yes.
Fiona, I think I can hear him coming.
Porter. Porter. Where is that man? Who are you?
Good morning, George, I'm William
George?
Master. I'm so sorry, master.
Why are you here?
Fiona? Help me out? Why am I here?
You've got no work and nowhere to go.
Mr Shaw. Master. I've got no work and I've got nowhere to go.
And what authority have you got if any to come here?
Master. I've been to see the relieving officer and he's asked me to come here to ask for your help.
You people, you people. How old are you?
Master, I'm 51.
What skills if any of you got?
Farmhand
Farmhand. I'm a farmhand.
Why are you not working at the moment?
Master there's no more work on the fields for me this year.
My God, you got lice in your hair. You will have your head shaven and you will be bathed. You will have a medical inspection to make sure that you're not bringing any diseases into my Workhouse.
It is astonishing, isn't it? The sudden institutionalisation of an individual from walking in having no work to suddenly being treated like a criminal.
It's a loss of freedom and a strict regime as soon as you enter the Workhouse.
It's Antcliffe isn't it?.
It is master. Yes, it is.
You are going to convert this rope into this oakum. You do it with your fingernails and you pick each thread and put it in the bin. I will see you later.
What is in front of me is a, a natural fibre cable. It is about 4 to 5 inches across. It's full of tar and quite honestly with a fingernail, it is impenetrable and with my already creaky old hands, I don't think I'm going to get very far with this. Fiona, what am I doing? I've been set this dreary task.
Workhouse inmates and even prison inmates would have done this task and you'd be doing this potentially for hours on end and it might ruin your hands for when you wanted to go back into the farm work, so not a very pleasant task. The workhouses sold the end product of the oakum back to the shipyards for caulking the boards of the ship and that's where the phrase'money for old rope' comes from. You don't get to keep any money. All you receive is a roof over your head and three meals a day.
And would I be doing it normally in a room full of other people doing the same thing? Would there be some conviviality at least that you might be talking to people?
That could well be the case, but you'd be looking out for the master coming to check on you?
Because if I was chatting and idling I guess the master might come over master.
How are you getting on Antcliffe?
What is the likelihood Master of having something to eat or indeed having the temperature raised a little bit.
If you're not warm enough, work harder.
I have to say it's good to see the back of, back of him. What a formidable and domineering character he is.
If you want to come down these steps, we're going to come out into this yard. This is the exercise yard that we're in now. You can see in the corner we've got the privies. But what I really wanted to show you was this windowsill over here.
You brought me up to the wall of the principal facade of the building just adjacent to this casement window I can see some marks on the wall. What's this about?
So, this is one of the best records we've got left of the individuals who were at the Workhouse. Can you see this grid?
Yes, I can.
Yes. It's not immediately obvious what it is. However, when we get a shadow cast off of the windowsill, it creates a vertical line and intersects this grid here.
It's a sundial.
The inmates wouldn't know what time it was, they would be told what to do and when. Maybe there'd be a bell. But as part of wanting to take some agency back for themselves, they've created their own sundials. They must have done a lot of calculations for that. It also had a lot of risk with it because if they've been caught doing this, it would have been quite a severe punishment.
You can also see at the other end of this windowsill, we have a second sun dial here as well and this one is for the afternoon and it's a really special moment, very poignant I think on days when it is sunny, when we can see that shadow, to think that people were stood here like that maybe 200 years ago, certainly over 100 years ago, trying to work out a simple thing like what time of day it was, is something really quite special.
That is extraordinary with the inevitable rhythm of the sun through the skies the same today as it was when those marks were made. That's very poignant.
It really shows the intelligence and the resourcefulness of the inmates that were here.
Time goes very slow when you're having a dreary time. Doesn't it drag? This has echoes and recalls prison life to me.
You can definitely see how it felt like that to some inmates at times.
This is about the poor breeding. It's about the poor failing to work when they could. And suddenly there's a narrative of the need for control and containment and restraint and that's going to be achieved through institutions like the Southwell Workhouse. I'm Steve King. I'm Professor of economic and social history at Nottingham Trent University. Southwell Workhouse was the brainchild of the the Reverend
John Beecher. So he's Anglo Irish. He arrives in 1792 into Southwell and he gets very early into this question of poor relief because he's right there in the 1790's at the same time as poor relief is spiralling out of control because of harvest failure and Napoleonic wars. He rapidly sees a systemic problem in the management of poor people and that systemic problem is that the they're always increasing the number and the bills are always increasing.
It's his idea to found the Workhouse up Upton which is now Southwell Workhouse, in 1824. This was all about two things. First of all saving money and the second thing was about the moral control of poor people. The intent of the poor law was to educate children not to become like the parents that generated them. The New Poor Law Workhouses often involve educational spaces and initially education is carried out in many places by
more literate paupers than the people they're teaching. But very soon we start to get schoolmasters and some of them are badly qualified, some of them are well qualified. There are plenty of scandals in involving schoolmasters.
So you can probably hear the school children here today. Shall we have a wander down to the classroom and have a look?
Yes please Fiona, lead the way.
And I was thinking you could be James Grasby for the second part of our tour because where we going next into the classroom and into the women's dormitory, William Antcliffe wouldn't have been allowed.
Before I leave William Antcliffe behind, what's the end of his story? Does he ever leave?
We think that he died in 1887, aged 69. So that means he spent the last 20 years of his life here.
Sad, sad story. Happy the child whose tender years receive instruction well, who hates the sinner's path and fears the road that leads to hell.
You can see the 19th century morals and values there. This idea that if you can train the child well, then they'll be self sufficient when they're older and they won't end up back at the Workhouse as adults and falling back on the system and costing money.
So, reading, writing and arithmetic.
Yes. And also geography for the boys as well. Not for the girls because they're not going to require that. But religious education for all.
Why would a girl not require geography?
I suppose in her line of work it's not necessary.
My goodness, it's possible that a child who was admitted into the Workhouse was receiving an education which perhaps they wouldn't have got normally outside the Workhouse.
From the very start education was being offered at a time where it wouldn't be universally available for another 50 years.
What happened to the children the end of the school day?
Well, if the weather was nice, they'd likely get to go and play outside briefly. But then it'd be upstairs to their dormitories. Children were separated from parents when they arrived in the Workhouse. But we know that they would have had an opportunity to see their parents once a week on a Sunday.
So fleeting, agonising glimpses and maybe children hearing their parents and not being able to see them and these enforced separations.
That was a big feature for any family coming into the Workhouse. The dilemma is, do you struggle to survive on the outside together or do you come into the Workhouse knowing that you'll have shelter and food and medical care, but you also know that you'll be segregated. It's a very difficult choice to make.
We've just left the that main entrance hallway towards the back of the building.
We stop and look through this window, we're overlooking the men's work yard and straight in front of us is one of the features of Beecher's original design, which is a small infirmary. Inevitably, people are going to need medical care, particularly the age and infirm and that's what the infirmary originally was for. And again, that is quite forward thinking because the labouring classes at this time would have really struggled to afford their own medical care.
John Beecher is ahead of his time. Beecher has basically founded a regime and built a Workhouse that looks like the majority of New Poor Law workhouses will become after 1834. You have both building that is fit for purpose and a whole regime which is all about dissuading people from claiming relief, where they could stand on their own two feet. Beecher also had a a sort of more compassionate side. A Workhouse might also be the best place for the truly old, truly sick.
So this sense of the 1834 poor law, both as a a relatively flexible compassionate place, a receptacle for those who genuinely needed it and as a form of discipline for those who didn't.
You see? I named my orphans according to a little...
I think Oliver Twist and other contemporary representations became very, very etched onto the contemporary public imagination. But these things are not representative in terms of medical care, clothing, diet, education. In in terms of all of those things there is no doubt at all in my mind, based upon my research, that people in the Workhouse were better served in the Workhouse than they would have been outside.
So Fiona, when did the Workhouse finally close?
Well, strictly speaking, that was when the Poor law ended in 1929 and they became known as public assistance institutions and were then administered by the local authority. This particular Workhouse was given a different name in the early 20th century. The earliest reference we can find to it is 1904 when the guardians chose the name, Greet House, named after the nearby River Greet.
This meant that for babies being born on site and for people dying here, their birth and death certificates would have that name Greet House instead of the feared Workhouse term.
What you're suggesting is that stigma prevailed for a long time about having the Workhouse in your history.
The deterrent system that we talked about from the 19th century. It was done so well that that reputation persisted into the 20th century. And even now on the edge of living memory, there are people today who can remember the Workhouse system and still feel that stigma today. There's one more thing I want to show you, I'm taking you to see one of the dormitories we heard about earlier and it's actually one that the age and infirm women would have used in the 1800's.
So we come to the end of a corridor, a little partition through a door.
And you'll see, it looks a little bit different now.
Now, Fiona, I was not expecting this. It's a bedsit with a pretty straightforward gas stove over the little sideboard with a mincing machine, a surface to prepare food. There's a table with a teapot laid for tea and a row of beds. One, two, three, four, five. Five iron frame beds. It's a sort of seventies bedsit.
That is absolutely what it is.
What's it doing here Fiona?
Even after the Workhouse era had ended, this building was still used to accommodate homeless families while they were waiting for further help. One of the last residents was here as late as 1977 which is why you see the room as it is.
This is within my living memory, my experience. So I presume that there are people still alive who lived here.
We're actually in touch with some people who have lived in these rooms. So today James, we have Mr Perkins who's come to meet you to tell you about his story of when he used to live in one of these rooms. Michael. Thank you very much for coming today. Can I introduce you to James?
It's a pleasure to meet you. Tell me a little bit about the time that you arrived here and the sort of the age you were at.
I would have been here with my mother and five or six of my siblings when I was four years old because I believe my mother was struggling because my father was in prison. I remember being here in this room, there was no heating. There was only, as I remember, two beds.
Do you recall how long you were here for?
Probably months. It would have been November because there'd been a big bonfire the night before. I spent my time collecting the spent fireworks, which I found quite amusing.
And it was one room living really? I mean, everything happened in here by the look of it. You, you slept, you cooked. And tell me you said there were two beds for how many of you?
Six of us, six children and my mother.
And your bed was a pretty primitive affair?
Yes, mine was the two chairs with an overcoat over me. It was more comfortable than sleeping on the floor. It was just a little bit softer.
It was barely enough, in hindsight., do you feel?
Yes, I do. But, I had to make do with it. I do remember being very hungry. On one occasion I was so hungry I ventured out of the door and went down these stone steps, turned right at the bottom, opening the door into the kitchen. There was nobody in there. And of course, with me being so small, I was reaching up on to the top of the work surfaces, exploring, trying to find something to eat. But unfortunately, I couldn't find anything, went out, closed
the door and climbed the stairs, back up to the room. Still very cold and very hungry.
You were very little at the time and in hindsight, how do you look back at that time you spent here?
It gave us a roof over our heads. Unfortunately, the onward move took me into care and then on to being fostered.
When you walk through the same door just a moment ago. I see a sparkly eyed man. How are things subsequent to your time here?
I like to think that I succeeded quite well. I went on to be quite successful in the print trade. I've also run a pub for seven years with my wife and retired on my 65th birthday and I'm living quite a comfortable life now, and enjoyable.
Wonderful. It's been an absolute pleasure to meet you here and thank you very much for sharing your story.
My pleasure.
Thank you. Thank you very much, Fiona. That was extraordinary, extraordinary to hear that story. It's a very powerful thing, isn't it?
It's always a special moment to meet anyone with a connection here and like you say, to stand in, in the room with a person who's actually lived here. We do have a number of visitors who are local, who have connections here and even staff and volunteers as well, so I've actually discovered my own personal connection.
Have you?
Through using our birth and death register in our collection here, combined with the 1921 census, I have found distant cousins of mine who lived and eventually died here. So it can be surprising just how many of us have got that personal connection to Workhouse history.
I mean, what you're saying and what you've explained to me is this great building is not just an architectural monument to an era in our history, but it is a nexus sort of meeting point for historians, family historians, for real people, and even members of staff to find deep connections, not only with a place, but to other people in their family lines or other people who have been associated with you in history. That's extraordinary. What a wonderful inspiring story.
Well, James, thank you very much for coming along today and it's been a pleasure to show you around the Workhouse.
It's been an absolute delight. I've been bowled over not only by the place but by the very emotional, deep stories and deeply rooted histories here. It's an extraordinary place. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of the National Trust podcast. If you've enjoyed it and would like to hear about how we make the National Trust podcast I'll be appearing at the Chalk History Festival in June along with the producers behind
the show. We'll be back soon with another episode. But for now from me, James Grasby. Goodbye.