Many unions resisted legislative regulations because they believed governmental policy interfered with local control. Census returns for 1801 and 1851 show the population almost doubling during those years; between 1801 and 1911 it almost quadrupled, rising from about 9 million people to 36 million by 1911 (Long 2). By the end of the century there were thre… The very poorest families had to make do with even less - some houses were home to two, three or even four families. Many people scorned the poor rather than pitying them. The harsh system of the workhouse became synonymous with the Victorian era, an institution which became known for its terrible conditions, forced child labour, long hours, malnutrition, beatings and neglect. While a rich family might live in a large Beautiful house with several bedrooms, a large living room, a parlor and a dining room separate from the kitchen, poor children might have as little as one room for the family to live in. Some guardians were more lenient about this regulation than others, believing, for example, that a man's tools should be retained in case he were able to leave the House for prospective employment. It is hard to adequately put into words how bad the conditions were for poor Victorian children. They usually had servants that performed all the duties including cleaning the house, washing clothes and cooking supper. When Britain defeated the Dutch, French, and the Spanish in the American Revolutionary War (1775—1783), Britain managed to get possession of the East Coast of North America as well. The Victorian home design was primarily determined by the owner of the home. Some also had their hair closely cropped as well. The fictional image actually exemplifies the nineteenth-century workhouse more than the poorhouse, and the two terms became synonymous. Perhaps the indigent elderly should have been more provident. If the board decided the applicant were sufficiently indigent, he or she was "offered" a place in the institution. Victorian Children and Life in Victorian Times. Many worked as chimney sweeps as they were small enough to fit up the chimneys. Hence, applying for relief was a tacit admission of defeat and moral degradation. (The workhouse soon abandoned bone grinding, finding it caused disease). The more children they had the more bodies there were to go to work and earn money. Sexual Violence Prevention & Response (Title IX). On three alternating days of the week, men consumed twelve ounces of bread, a pint and a half of gruel, a pint and a half of soup, and two ounces of cheese. Oliver Twist must have been very hungry indeed to request another cup of gruel, the unappetizing and unsatisfying dietary staple of the poorhouse. Victorian poor children worked in the cities factories, working around dangerous machinery. As the overcrowding and conditions of the slums worsened it was harder to ignore. She breaks up housekeeping and trudges from place to place, selling handiwork to stay alive. Inmates were disinfected, their clothes were taken away, and they put on the House uniform. In some unions, unmarried mothers were forced to wear yellow gowns, branding them immoral as surely as if a scarlet "A" had been on their foreheads. Fears of rising numbers of paupers materialized as increased industrialization and the enclosure acts forced many people to seek relief. Sloppy and two other orphans, the "Minders," operate a mangle (a machine for smoothing cloth) for her. Visits from "outsiders" were closely monitored. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. The Commission had neglected to conduct a thorough investigation of the causes of poverty, especially in urban areas. Victorian Housing (built between 1837 and 1901) Millions of houses were built in the Victorian era thanks to the industrial revolution and the consequent housing booms. Instead of each parish being responsible for its poor as in the past, the Commission formed unions comprised of several parishes, each union having a local board of guardians to implement the new regulations. Betty Higden, of Our Mutual Friend, was one of these. Victorian houses were generally built in terraces or as detached houses. The servants life was not anything to dream about but the servants quarters were still better than the poor families homes. Crowther, M.A. The symbol of this moralistic, short-sighted legislation remains: the image of the poorhouse -- a gaunt, grim building offering meager food and shelter at the expense of human dignity and hope. Building materials were brick or local … In a time when the poor flocked to the cities from the country, the factory owners needed to house their new workers. They had more than one bathroom and even had flushing toilets. Most poor families lived in small apartments. Home / London 1865 / The Victorian City / The Victorian Poorhouse. Victorian era, the period between about 1820 and 1914, corresponding roughly to the period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837–1901) and characterized by a class-based society, a growing number of people able to vote, a growing state and economy, and Britain’s status as the most powerful empire in the world. Learning Objectives: To investigate the differences between the lives of Rich and Poor Victorians. People crowded into already crowded houses. Some families had as many as eight to twelve children or more. The workhouse needed to be as unattractive as possible to give the poor an incentive to work and save. Cities filled to overflowing and London was particularly bad. Well, by the Victorian era, things hadn’t changed much. As depicted by Charles Dickens, a workhouse could resemble a reformatory, often housing whole families, or a penal labour regime giving manual work to the indigent and subjecting them to physical punishment. Some books on hygiene and beauty towards the end of the Victorian era suggested that people with oily hair should wash their hair every two weeks or so and those with normal hair should wash it once per month. An ugly idea took root that perhaps all the poor were undeserving. Teachers' Notes Workers' Housing in the Victorian Era Upper Class Homes An Artist's Vision of a Victorian Home Story resources, links 6 & downloads 11 Workers' Housing in the Victorian Era There were great differences in living standards between rich and poor during in the Victorian period. So most poor children learnt their letters and number at a local dame school, but by the time they were seven or eight years old, they were expected to start earning some money. Smoking was prohibited, as was reading -- even of the Bible. The problem with this theory, of course, was that many of the poor deserved help and could not work even if jobs were available or make enough money to save anything. Workers receiving low wages received supplemental income through parish funds, the stipend calculated by family size as well as wages. East London had the most well-known slums of that time. The poor Victorian Children lived in much smaller accommodations than the rich children did. Read on to find out more about the homes of poor families . As the twentieth century approached, the poorhouse became a more humane place. Construction and maintenance of four separate buildings was likely to be too costly or too complicated. The Commission's findings resulted in the New Poor Law of 1834, legislation which created the now-infamous image of the poorhouse. Everyone except the feeble and children less than seven years of age performed the same work for the same number of hours and ate the same basic meals. Overburdened parishes called on Parliament for help, and Parliament responded by appointing a commission headed by Edwin Chadwick to investigate the situation. A basement with a cellar for the storage of coal, required for open fires and to heat water. The prevailing literary image of the poorhouse as a place of gross inhumanity, enforced deprivation, and unspeakable insensitivity, like many stereotypes, has some basis in fact, but certainly not all Victorian poorhouses fit that description. Victorian Durham: the homes of the poor. Other than potatoes, the diet was entirely devoid of vegetables, fruit, milk, or eggs. While Victorians may not have agreed on institutionalizing the poor or on how to dispense relief equitably, most agreed that the New Poor Law of 1834 was poorly conceived and wretchedly implemented. When readers first encounter Betty in the novel, she has her own little home and garden, models of cleanliness and industry. Keep in mind that families were large in Victorian times, especially poor families. For reasons unexplained, however, the policy of separate facilities changed. And so that was the destination for hundreds of deprived children – those, … As time went by the national press caught hold of the story of the slums and the dismal life and existence of the people and brought widespread awareness and public sympathy to the problem. If you look closely at some of the houses on the Baileys in Durham you can see the basements and attics. Watch the slide show below to get a more vivid idea of a rich Victorian child’s home. The applicant next met with medical examiners who determined whether he or she was able-bodied or infirm. Rich Victorians favoured villas ( not the same as Roman villas), whilst the emerging middle classes of Victorian England lived in superior terraces with gardens back and front and a … The Commission contended that different regulations for these groups necessitated separate housing and staff. With over 50 thousands photos uploaded by local and international professionals, there's inspiration for you only at senaterace2012.com Photograph of the interior of a Victorian drawing room, c1890. Other rules were likewise bent, and treatment of inmates varied from union to union and board to board. Often parents were not allowed to speak to their children. Initially, meals were held in silence, and the diet was sparse at best. Abuses in the House were widespread and well-documented, although regulations were revised frequently throughout the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century saw a huge growth in the population of Great Britain. The difference between upper class and lower class was vastly greater than it is today. It was 1866, and 10-year-old Annie was a blind child living in abject poverty. Charles Dickens’ second book, Oliver Twist (1838) contained the classic Victorian themes of grinding poverty, menacing characters, injustice and punishment. With the advent of the Poor Law system, Victorian workhouses, designed to deal with the issue of pauperism, in fact became prison systems detaining the most vulnerable in society. During the 19th century more people moved into the towns and cities to find work in factories. They would be in buildings that were very close to or connected to another set of apartments. The ambiguous image of the poorhouse, or "The House" as it was frequently called (or the more ironic "The House of Industry"), reflects the ambiguous position of the poor, especially in the first half of the 19th century. I believe there has been in England, since the days of the STUARTS, no law so often infamously administered, no law so often openly violated, no law habitually so ill-supervised." Victorian Houses Rich and Poor. Despite the premise that no "outdoor" relief was to be granted, many rural unions subverted this rule. Victorian houses may be beautiful, but living in a genuine Victorian might be harder than you think. Sewage ran down the street since there was no underground sewage pipes. Sometimes more than one family would live in an apartment to split the costs. In some cases, unscrupulous officers who trimmed expenses siphoned the savings for themselves. After conducting its investigation, the Poor Law Commission created several policies, including that of the workhouse system. The one principle virtually everyone agreed upon was the need for reform. In another poorhouse, an official inspection revealed that as many as seven people shared a bed because of overcrowded conditions. Nevertheless, the restrictive and often punitive measures associated with the Poor Law soon earned the House the unflattering nickname of the "Poor Law Bastille.". In January 1850, the Times mentions a pregnant woman who died on the steps of the Southampton poorhouse from exhaustion and starvation. Each facility differed dramatically from others depending on location and time period. Pauper Palaces. London had slums in other areas also. The family was then separated, and in some cases the children and infirm were sent to other institutions, perhaps not even in the same locale. Once a week, inmates bathed and male inmates shaved -- all in the presence of workhouse staff. The ambiguous image of the poorhouse, or "The House" as it was frequently called (or the more ironic "The House of Industry"), reflects the ambiguous position of the poor, especially in the first half of the 19th century. Hence, fear of the poorhouse was a rational, predictable reaction. Victorian London - Houses and Housing - Housing of the Poor - Slums. Less money spent on food and coal meant more money in the administrative pocket. The able-bodied poor received a disproportionate share of attention. In the Andover workhouse in 1845, inmates assigned to bone grinding were observed gnawing the bones they were to grind. Victorian Houses of the Wealthy. Last modified: April 3, 2012 128.114.113.73, UC Santa Cruz, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, Ca 95064. Various ideas have been put forward; larger families; more children surviving infancy; people living longer; immigration, especially large numbers of immigrants coming from Ireland fleeing the potato famine and the unemployment situation in their own country. Emilio Guerra/Getty Images. The accommodation provided was cheap, and quick to build. In towns poor people lived in back-to-back houses called terraced houses. He wrote, "But that my view of the Poor Law may not be mistaken or misrepresented, I will state it. The possibility of being forced into the poorhouse keeps her trudging until she dies, the money for her burial hidden in her clothing. The difference between upper class and lower class was vastly greater than it is today. The most prevalent problem was lack of uniform implementation. In fact, several houses would share a single water pump installed outside. But in 1834, the government, eager to slash spending on the rising number of paupers, passed the Poor Law Amendment Act, declaring that poor relief would now only be offered in the workhouse. The rendering to the left is an artists first hand impression of what a Victorian slum looked like. The images merged because the two entities themselves merged, and the surviving image is that of the workhouse. Hence, the standard of living varied considerably for inmates in workhouses, depending on the benevolence of the local board and officers. 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