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To Punish or Protect: The New Poor Law and the English Workhouse

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Abstract

Aimed to alleviate pauperism in nineteenth-century England, the New Poor Law of 1834 resulted in the creation of hundreds of workhouses across the English landscape. Through the workhouses’ continuing use and adaptation over nearly a 100 years, these buildings illustrate the complexities of attitudes towards, and the treatment of, the poor. In its use of the built form to understand the human experience, this research identifies the variable implementation of the policies of segregation, surveillance, and specialization to promote care and/or control. Ultimately, this multifaceted approach to the workhouse reveals how workhouse architecture reflected, and sometimes contradicted, contemporaneous attitudes towards poverty, structuring, yet not defining, a pauper’s identity.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their advice and assistance with this project: Dr. Kate Giles (University of York) and staff at Leeds NHS Trust, Bradford NHS Trust, Ripon Workhouse Museum, Thackeray Museum, Otley Museum and Archive Trust, English Partnerships. Finally I would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful suggestions.

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  1. 25, Lewis Close, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP19 9AW, UK

    Charlotte Newman

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  1. Charlotte Newman
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Correspondence to Charlotte Newman.

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Newman, C. To Punish or Protect: The New Poor Law and the English Workhouse. Int J Histor Archaeol 18, 122–145 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-013-0249-7

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