Around the middle of the 17thC, parishes in Britain gradually started housing the poor in purpose-built buildings where they were required to work in return for food and lodgings. While some Workhouses started out as self-help institutions by the 19thC the conditions in them were appalling and the regime so harsh that the people who were forced to enter them were the old, the infirm, orphans, unmarried women and the mentally ill.
The Clerkenwell workhouses in London are interesting in that one can trace the development of the institution from its idealistic beginnings in the 17thC to the 19thC harsh principles behind the Workhouses’ abhorrent conditions. Two Workhouses existed in Clerkenwell: the Quaker Workhouse (1702-1768) and the Workhouse of the Parishes of St. James and St. John (1727-ca.1870s).
This is an indicative but by no means exhaustive list of historical resources on the Clerkenwell Workhouses:
General Workhouse History Resources
The series of Acts that governed the operation of the Workhouses are important resources for the history of the Workhouse and its development throughout the centuries. These are: the 1601 Poor Law Act, the 1662 Settlement Act, the 1722 Knatchubll’s Act, the 1782 Gilbert’s Act, the 1834 Poor Law Act, the 1838 Irish Act and the 1845 Scottish Act. The full text of these Acts can be found in the excellent website workhouses.
Proceedings of the main Chamber of the House of Commons contain information about conditions in the Workhouses. Reports of these proceedings are produced in the Official Report (also known as Hansard) and can be found online.
The Quaker Workhouse in Clerkenwell
Described by Timothy Hitchcock as “one of the most radical experiments in co-operativism made in the 18thC”, the Quaker Workhouse was inspired by the writings of John Bellers. He envisioned a college of industry for the poor, an “independent co-operative community in which no money would be needed... and to which each member would contribute according to his ability”.
On the 18thC Quaker Workhouse particularly valuable is Richard Hutton’s Complaints Book: The notebook of the Steward of the Quaker workhouse at Clerkenwell, 1711-1737, edited by Timothy Hitchcock in 1987. The full text of the book is offered in British History Online. The edition offers also bibliography.
The Writings of John Bellers are also useful historical resources for the ideological context surrounding the treatment of the London poor. See for example: John Bellers, His Life, Times and Writings, ed. G. Clarke, Routledge 1987. British History Online also contains excellent resources for the history of the Clerkenwell Workhouses.
Parish Workhouse of Clerkenwell
The Workhouse of St. John and St. Mary in Clerkenwell was built in 1727 and housed at first 89 people employed in “spinning mop-yarn and picking ockam”. It is described in the Account of Several Workhouses for Employing and Maintaining the Poor (London 1732) as “large, plain and commodious Brick-House”, while in 1865 it is deplored by The Lancet as a “tall, gloomy, brick building” that wears “an aspect of squalid poverty and meanness”, a dismal prison hospital.
Resources for the Clerkenwell parish Workhouse can be found in the Local History Collection of the Islington London Borough. The Collection contains records of the Parish of St. James which include 19thC Workhouse admission and discharge register, sick relief books and mortuary register with causes of death. The workhouses website mentioned above contains a wealth of information as well.
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