Genealogy Chat

This is more a plea for help to understand something.
I've traced a relative and his family through to 1901 where the head of the household could be the record that appears as an inmate in the local Union Workhouse. He's described as a stone quarry labourer and is married. I understood that the whole family would enter the workhouse but I can't find his wife there. Searching specifically for her I find that she is apparently living in the family home still. Is this possible?

Alan

Forgot to mention, on the wife's record she is entered as wife and there isn't a "head" entered for the household.

Sometimes people went into workhouses at a time of ill health as there was often no hospital available to them.


Gwyn

great research.....congrats......on the record for the wife as not 'head' is she recorded as widow?

..have you got the 1901 poorhouse man in 1891 with a similar job, stonemason,quarryman, different situation?

..and all things are possible, put more up to share so that we can have a look, sounds a good story.

Bob p.s. won't see this again till the morrow

Alan,

the Union Workhouse was often the only hospital that was available for people who could not pay for nurses ....... you could consider a workhouse almost to be in two parts. The workhouse for those who had nowhere else to live, and the hospital that was for the inmates AND the neighbouring inhabitants.


If the wife was at home shown as Married, Wife, and no Head shown, then I would tend to assume that he is the one in the workhouse. Maybe he was sick, maybe he had been injured.


All may become clear when the 1911 census appears.


OR you could check on freebmd.org.uk and see if he dies. Then get his death certificate to find where he died, what he died of, and who reported it.


sylvia

My 5 x great grandfather died in a Workhouse, at the age of 86, in 1840.

On his death certificate cause of death is Senile Decay. I suppose this would have been Dementia, and he had to be looked after.

Hi Everyone,
Thanks for your help and suggestions. I had no idea that the Workhouse acted as a hospital. What info I have would indicate that perhaps he was infirm for some reason as his wife was listed at home as wife, not head of the family.
Thanks again

Alan

Alan

The following website is good for information:

www.workhouses.org.uk

If you Google workhouses there are others.

Regards,
Caroline

Hi Allan, My grandfather was always in and out of the workhouse wlth his family and i think it was because like others have said it was easy hospital care and as my grandparents sometimes destitute.
where was the workhouse.

Many workhouses had hospitals attached to them.
At the turn of the 20th century, my grandmother and her 9 siblings were all born in the workhouse. G grandfather had a job and they lived in a nice house. But - medical attention was free in the workhouse. If g grandma had had her children at home she would have had to pay for a midwife and, if there were complications a doctor. all these were available for free in the workhouse.
That workhouse is now just a hospital.

maggie

My knowledge is as above, but to show the enduring history I thought I would advise re my first nursing post 20 years ago was on a ward in the old workhouse!! This still held stigma to the older local people who always associated being admitted to the ward as going into the workhouse (even in 1990's...building has now been converted into bespoke apartments...wonder if they know!!!!)