Based on childhood recollections
of working class family life in north London in Edwardian times.
The workhouse
The workhouse was where people who couldn't support themselves could go to
live and work. At one time my father was the 'labour master' there, but he didn't
speak about his work much. I do know that the food was very basic indeed to discourage people from
going there. The men, though, did get given some tobacco once a week, which
seems rather strange in the circumstances.
Section through a reconstruction of an early 1900s road at Amberley Heritage Museum, showing the crushed stones, broken up by the male inmates of workhouses .
I also know that all the men in the workhouse who were
able to had to work at hard manual labour. One job was to break up stones for
the roads, and my father had a large hammer in the shed that came from the workhouse
and was very heavy.
I often wondered if the women in the workhouse had any treats. They had to
work very hard too, washing everything that needed washing in the Infirmary
laundry. There were no washing machines or washing powders. The women had to
use their bare hands, carbolic soap, washboards, mangles and flat irons.
My father came across some interesting characters in the workhouse. For example
he saw an old sailor who had had the cat of nine tails as punishment on board
ship, and still had the grooves from the flogging in his back. My father told
me that when he was a child, it was not uncommon on a hot day in the street,
when men had taken off their shirts, to see backs scarred by the cat.
If you have an old photo which would illustrate
my mother's writings, I would very much appreciate a copy.
Pat Cryer
Quite apart from the workhouse being an unpleasant place, it was a dreadful
stigma to be there. Families were always afraid that they might have to go there
if the money stopped coming in for any reason, and if something expensive had
to be bought, a common remark was, "You'll have me in the workhouse".
The Infirmary
The infirmary was a kind of hospital for the infirm, aged and poor. At one
time my father was an ambulance driver for the infirmary and the workhouse.
I know that he transported children from the infirmary to Chase Farm School.
I'm not sure, but I think they were children whose parents were in the workhouse.
The hospital
North Middlesex Hospital (the Edmonton Military Hospital
during the World War One) was part of my mother's life and there are mentions
of it throughout this website as you can see by searching for 'hospital'
in the search facility on the home page. (In particular,
see the page on the wounded
soldiers of WW1.) Yet nowhere, so far in my transcriptions, does she
specifically describe the hospital. Pat Cryer.
The casual ward
Richard Mellor has written to say that he is reasonably
sure that this casual ward is the one that George Orwell describes in the
second half of Down And Out in Paris & London. A young Orwell,
forced to become a vagrant for a period, first frequents a casual ward in
Romton, and then one in Edbury. After some scrabbling on the net and a bit
of map work, Richard is reasonably sure these were in fact Romford and Edmonton,
the names changed for legal reasons, either by Orwell or his publishers.
The casual ward was where vagrants were housed for just one night and it
was part of the same building as the workhouse. The entrance was off Silver
Street in Bull Lane. On arrival in the late afternoon. the men would line up
outside. They would have their possessions taken from them and be given a bath,
a meal and a bed for the night. For this they would have to do some work rather
like the inmates of the workhouse. The next morning, they had to be on their
way, and their possessions were returned to them.
The epileptic colony
There was an epileptic colony in Silver Street in
a building called Millfield House, which was opposite Millfield Road. Many of
the inmates were also cripples and we could easily recognise them because they
wore a uniform of grey suits. It was not uncommon to see one collapse on the
pavement during a fit.
This website Join me in the 1900s is also known as
Join me in the 1900's and is ©
Pat Cryer.
