Genealogy Chat

Can anybody please tell me when Workhouses ceased to exsist? and were they the same as an institution? If someone wrote a letter from what was called an Institution in the address, and said she was being looked after by 'sisters' what does this suggest? The year was 1942 and i cannot find any details of the Institution but there was a workhouse in the area on very old maps prior to this. Maureen

I don't think the staff would have been called 'sisters' - in fact I wonder if it was an institution run by Catholic nuns. For workhouses see: www(.)institutions(.)org.uk/workhouses/index(.)html [Remove brackets]

'Sisters' suggests Convent. Institution could be anything - an orphanage, a hospital, a home for unmarried mothers. Most of the Workhouses were turned to other use after the advent of the Social Security System in 1949 and in practice, for many years before that had been used as what we would now call long term institutions, housing the elderly, the mentally incapable and the physically disabled. OC

Paul Thanks for the reply. Just been informed by a cousin that she has found a letter written by our grandmother just before she died in 1942. She says the address on the letter was Whiston County Institution, Whiston Russet, Lancs. I cannot find anything on Google about Whiston Russet, found a Whiston Hospital that was once a workhouse. The really strange thing is, grandmother came from London, Grandfather didnt die till 1953 and he was still in London, yet here she is writing in 1942 and Whiston is near Liverpool. I am being impatient really, Cousin hasnt got scanner so i have got to wait for her to copy it and send it to me by post. Maureen

Paul I forgot to say - she wasnt Catholic. Old Crone Thanks. She would have been 65 by then, so not an unmarried mother!! Maybe she was ill, but able to write letters by all accounts so not mentally infirm, and why in Lancs, thats what has really got me. Is there any way i can look up a electoral roll for 1940's do you know? By the way - her name was Mary Smith!! Maureen

Maureen She may not have been mentally infirm, but had some mental condition which had periodic outbreaks. Or she may have had a longterm physical condition. As to what she was doing in Lancashire, well there are several possiblities, but I think the most likely is that there was a War on, and most hospitals and Institutions decamped from London during that time. Sadly, she will not be on an Electoral Roll - none were taken during the War. Added to that, if she was in an Institution because of some certifiable mental condition, she would not have been entitled to a vote. OC

What did she die of? Perhaps it was a TB hospital? People where sent to the countryside for the curative effect of the fresh air (even after the discovery of antibiotics) Or perhaps she was evacuated because of the war (did she have any children under 14 at this time) Some parents moved with their children because they couldn't bear to be parted from them.