A talk by Tony Cherry on 9 December 2025 on the history of the Thornbury Workhouse. Report by Stan Morrissey.
Maybe not a festive topic, but Tony Cherry’s account of how the poor law worked (or didn’t) back in the 1800s was eye-opening.
Support to the poor was once the province of monasteries but after their dissolution in the 1530s this fell on the parishes. Provision for welfare varied widely between parishes and was a costly drain on their finances. Some argued that the problem was irresponsible men fathering children by multiple women and not supporting them but others held it was work-shy men, happy to rely on handouts.
The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 brought in a new national regime for dealing with those who needed parish relief. Welfare was costing too much, and the government had the solution. For the first time there was to be overall government control. Gone were the days when parishes devised their own solutions and paupers in adjacent parishes could be treated differently. A strict new regime, designed to dissuade applications for relief, was going to curb the ever-increasing cost. Sound familiar?
The first step was to remove responsibility for poor relief from individual parishes and lump them together into unions run by guardians under Poor Law Commissions. Thornbury Union stretched from Berkeley to Henbury; its first meeting was held at the Swan in Thornbury in 1836. Its main purpose was to find a site for a new workhouse, the then-current building in St Mary Street being far too small for the new catchment area. A plot at Coldstones — part of what was later to be the Mundy Playing Fields — was considered but objections by residents and some financial skullduggery by one of the guardians put it off the agenda. Eventually the site in Gloucester Road was settled upon and a building erected.
Many new rules were introduced, mainly to reduce the cost of parish relief, since individual parishes still funded the central union facility. Those seeking support were harshly treated to dissuade applications. Families were deliberately split up. Young children stayed with their mother but were separated when older. Uniform was obligatory; it did provide adequate clothing but singled out the workhouse inhabitants if they absconded. Many of the guardians were church-based and so attendance at religious services was mandated. The workhouse governors were military or naval NCOs and imposed harsh discipline.
After a case where a woman accused another inmate of making her pregnant, segregation was taken further. A wall between the exercise yards was raised and topped with broken glass so that different sexes could not even meet — a rather drastic method of birth control.
Food was sparse and of poor quality, though supposedly enough to sustain an able-bodied person. When it wasn’t, doctors advised accordingly. In 1846 a national Poor Law Commission criticised its inadequacy, but this was a time when there was a potato famine and the corn laws that had kept prices artificially high had only just been abolished. As a result. the guardians’ response was to say that inmates were better fed than those outside the workhouse. Food withdrawal (bread and water only) was used as a punishment. One complaint was of “too much protein”, a sarcastic reference to cockroaches in the soup. In another workhouse, inmates were reported as eating scraps of marrow and gristle to alleviate hunger.
Work was mandated. The able-bodied men were put to rock-breaking and grinding up bones for fertiliser, abolished in 1845. Other inmates picked oakum, pulling apart old tarred rope to be used for caulking ships, of which there was high demand in Bristol port. This was a very strenuous task eventually banned after an enquiry in 1845. The task of removing diseased parts from potatoes, which were then sold for food, was abandoned as the guardians said there was risk of the disease spreading. Children were often the main workers. To reduce costs, they were farmed out as domestic workers or apprenticed. In the parish of Alkington, those children not placed had to put heads on pins for four hours a day. This was defined by a factories commission as strenuous and stressful work, but they were made to do it anyway.
The expenses of running the Thornbury workhouse were not negligible. The head governor was required to be married because his wife acted as matron for the children. One report quoted the governor’s salary as £30pa and the matron’s as £20pa. The clerk to the guardians earned a respectable £80. Doctors were employed part-time. Dr E M Grace (elder brother of W G) was at one time among them, paid £70pa. Apart from attending the sick, doctors’ duties included deciding whether an inmate was fit enough to be punished and to certify for insanity. The doctor also reported on diet and accommodation.
Interestingly, alcohol was prescribed for many ailments. In a case elsewhere, a complaint was made that a patient with consumption was given only bread and water and that he was refused porter (a strong beer). The doctor said that in fact he was given porter daily. This patient was a child of 6! Locally, in 1863, a Dr Long was criticised for not prescribing alcohol. He said he had given the patient an aperitif of brandy, actually a pint but apparently not enough!
We haven’t mentioned education. In 1839 a schoolmaster and mistress were appointed. Their conditions of work were stringent — the schoolmistress was on duty for 24 hours a day, so lived in and could only leave the house for religious purposes. For this she was paid £20 with board; the schoolmaster was paid £30 but lived out. This was long before schooling was made mandatory. Teachers were rarely qualified and educational standards were poor.
Over time, the inhabitants’ profile changed. In 1832 Thornbury accommodated 9 women, 7 men, 14 boys and 15 girls. The men were all elderly but did not require outdoor relief as they were found temporary farm work. In 1861 all long-term residents were sick, infirm or “idiots”, incapable of work. A large national network of workhouses had by then been created, with the inevitable large civil service to administer them; despite governmental assumptions almost all housed the sick, not the able-bodied work-shy.
In 1913 workhouses became poor law institutions but the administration remained much the same. In 1933 most duties of the guardians were taken over by local authorities. In 1948, the NHS was created and the former workhouses were incorporated as hospitals. Mentally ill inhabitants who were not a danger to themselves or others stayed; if they were, they were moved to a secure institution for which the guardians had to pay. The stigma of the workhouse continued into the 1970s and disputes over who paid for what were common.
Tony’s talk was enthusiastically applauded by a packed hall, and we went away knowing a little more of Thornbury’s social history.