Southwell Workhouse

Today we went to Southwell Workhouse. A workhouse is a place where the poor would go in Victorian times in England. Inside of the Southwell Workhouse there were on average 158 people. People entered work houses because either they were too old or too poor to take care of themselves. Families were separated at the work houses. If families tried to talk to each other or even look at one another they would get a punishment. The reason for workhouses was the government didn’t want people to get money for being poor, so they made workhouses instead and they made the conditions not feel good inside. They didn’t want too many people to use the workhouses. The only time people in the Southwell Workhouse had Roast Beef it would be Christmas. Men made the bread. Men would break stones and turn grinders even if there wasn’t anything to grind! Woman unpicked ropes until their fingers started to bleed. For children dinner was usually bread and butter, milk and water. For the woman’s work there is a muddy yard with a pump in the middle to get water to wash clothes. During school for the kids, if you slouched there would be something to stop it and that would be a wooden thing that is almost the shape of your shoe and you would put it behind your back and sit there the whole day and not do any school work. When we sat on the beds my mum and I hurt. There was wood for the beds! By the time the people that lived in Southwell Workhouse were 14 or 15, they were allowed to leave the Workhouse but many times they didn’t have any place to go so it was sad and they had to come back. If you click on the photos we took, you can see the pictures clearer and one shows how much food a kid close to my age would get each day. It is a very low amount. The other picture is of the yard area where the women washed clothes. I got to try the pump and it really pumps water.