Conditions of Industrial England

Conditions of the Workhouse
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the parish workhouse was a place where - often in return for board and lodging - employment was provided for the poor. Parish workhouses were often just ordinary local houses, rented for the purpose. Sometimes a workhouse was purpose-built.
In some cases, the poor were "farmed" - a private contractor undertook to look after a parish's poor for a fixed annual sum; the paupers' work could be a useful way of boosting the contractor's income. The workhouse was not, however, necessarily regarded as place of punishment, or even misery. Indeed, conditions could be pleasant enough to earn some institutions the nickname of "Pauper Palaces".
In addition to the workhouse, much parish poor relief was through payments in money or in food to those living in their own homes. By the start of the nineteenth century, the cost of such "out-relief", which in some areas had become linked to the price of bread, was beginning to spiral. It was a...