The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief in England and Wales that developed out of the codification of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws in 1587–1598. The system continued until the modern welfare state emerged in the late 1940s.
In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses. The earliest known use of the term workhouse is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of Abingdon reporting that "we have erected wthn [sic] our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work".
Gortin is a village and townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is ten miles (16 km) north of Omagh in the valley of the Owenkillew river, overlooked by the Sperrins. It had a population of 360 at the 2001 Census.
Melton is a village in Suffolk, England, located approximately one mile northeast of Woodbridge. The 2001 census recorded a population of 3,718, the population increasing to 3,741 at the 2011 Census. The village is served by Melton railway station on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line. The parish contains 'Woodbridge' Melton, an area of building contiguous with Woodbridge but separated from most of Melton by the wood, 'Village' Melton, centred around the A1152 and A1438, Melton Park or Melton St Audry's, a housing estate converted from an asylum, and various outlying hamlets.
John Green Crosse, FRCS, FRS was a well-known English surgeon of his day, at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. After completing his apprenticeship in Stowmarket, he studied at St. George's Hospital and at the Windmill Street School of Medicine in London. He then moved to Dublin and Paris, finally settling in Norwich in 1815. In 1823 he became assistant-surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, and in 1826 surgeon. His reputation as a lithotomist, and in 1836 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Onehouse is a small village in the English county of Suffolk, about 3 miles west from the centre of Stowmarket near to the Golf Club. The population of the parish at the 2011 Census was 810.
The Poor Relief Act 1601 was an Act of the Parliament of England. The Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601, popularly known as the Elizabethan Poor Law, the "43rd Elizabeth", or the "Old Poor Law", was passed in 1601 and created a poor law system for England and Wales.
Sandal Magna or Sandal is a suburb of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England with a population in 2001 of 5,432. An ancient settlement, it is the site of Sandal Castle and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. It is 2 mi (3.2 km) south from Wakefield, 8 mi (13 km) north of Barnsley. The Battle of Wakefield was fought here in the 15th century during the Wars of the Roses.
Agnes Elizabeth Jones of Fahan, County Donegal, Ireland became the first trained Nursing Superintendent of Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. She gave all her time and energy to her patients and died at the age of 35 from typhus fever. Florence Nightingale said of Agnes Elizabeth Jones, ‘She overworked as others underwork. I looked upon hers as one of the most valuable lives in England.’
Tattingstone is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is situated on the Shotley peninsula, about 5 miles (8 km) south of Ipswich. The 2011 Census recorded the population as 540.
Haughley is a village and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. The village is located 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of the town of Stowmarket, overlooking the Gipping valley, next to the A14 corridor. The population recorded in 2011 was 1,638. Mentioned in the Domesday Book, it was the site of a castle, a church on the pilgrim's route to Bury St Edmunds Abbey, and a market. Adjacent farms on the north side of the village were also home to one of the first studies of organic farming and the first headquarters of the Soil Association.
Kirton is a village and civil parish in the East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England, situated off the A14 road, about 4.5 km (2.8 mi) from Felixstowe and around 10 km (6.2 mi) from Ipswich. The closest train station to Kirton is Trimley. According to the 2011 census, Kirton had a population of 1,146. It is located between the River Deben and the River Orwell. The village of Kirton covers a total area of 8.3 km2 (3.2 sq mi). As the county of Suffolk lacks quarries, many of the buildings are made from flint, clay and timber.
The Cleveland Street Workhouse is a Georgian property in Cleveland Street, Marylebone, built between 1775 and 1778 for the care of the sick and poor of the parish of St Paul Covent Garden under the Old Poor Law. From 1836, it became the workhouse of the Strand Union of parishes. The building remained in operation until 2005 after witnessing the complex evolution of the healthcare system in England. After functioning as a workhouse, the building became a workhouse infirmary before being acquired by the Middlesex Hospital and finally falling under the NHS. In the last century it was known as the Middlesex Hospital Annexe and the Outpatient Department. It closed to the public in 2005 and it has since been vacated. On 14 March 2011 the entire building became Grade II Listed. Development of the site began in 2019 by current owner University College London Hospitals (UCLH) Charity as a mixed-use development including residential, commercial and open space, but construction has been held up by the necessity to remove human remains stemming from the use of the area around the workhouse as a parish burial ground between 1780 and 1853. There has also been controversy about the amount of social housing to be included in the development.
In 2002, nursing homes in the United Kingdom were officially designated as care homes with nursing, and residential homes became known as care homes.
The Scottish poorhouse, occasionally referred to as a workhouse, provided accommodation for the destitute and poor in Scotland. The term poorhouse was almost invariably used to describe the institutions in that country, as unlike the regime in their workhouse counterparts in neighbouring England and Wales, residents were not usually required to labour in return for their upkeep.
The Pettiward Family were a landed family prominent in Putney and Great Finborough, Suffolk who control the Pettiward Estate in Earl's Court, London.
The Bedwellty Union Workhouse was situated in Georgetown, Tredegar. It is 2.9 miles (4.7 km) from the Nanybwtch Junction A465. The building was in existence for approximately 127 years. The workhouse building was also used as a hospital. Today, the site where the building once stood, there is a housing estate known as St James Park.
The Union Building on Hospital Hill in Aldershot in Hampshire is a Grade II listed building on the Register of Historic England. A former sub-manor of the Tichborne Family, it was later used as the Aldershot Workhouse and as the District School set up in 1849/50 by two poor law unions, referred to as the Union Building in the 1851 Census. It was later purchased as one of the first permanent Camp buildings of the British Army when it moved to the area in 1854.
Roger Pettiward (1754–1833) was an English businessman and antiquarian. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1788, and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1815.
