The Union Building on Hospital Hill in Aldershot in Hampshire is a Grade II listed building on the Register of Historic England. [1] 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.
The building dates from c. 1629 when it was built as a sub-manor for Sir Richard Tichborne (1578–1657), who had succeeded to the Tichborne baronetcy, Aldershot being closer to London than the family seat at Tichborne Park. Sir Richard was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles I. He and his younger brother, Sir Walter Tichborne, sons of Sir Benjamin Tichborne, had earlier settled in Aldershot having each married two of the daughters of Sir Robert White, who owned the manor at Aldershot. The family seat was at Aldershot Park but this became run down and when Charles I visited in August 1627 a Spanish Ambassador asked to have an urgent audience. To the embarrassment of the Tichbornes the king replied that the house at Aldershot was unfit for such a meeting and arranged it for the following week at Oatlands Palace, near Weybridge. This may have prompted Sir Richard to build his sub-manor, the present Union Building. The branch of the Tichborne family at Aldershot ran themselves heavily into debt after building a new and more fashionable manor house in the present Manor Park in Aldershot in 1670 and sold their older sub-manor. Records show that in 1684 the new owner transferred the property to his father. [2]
The Relief of the Poor Act 1782, also known as Gilbert's Act, [3] was a British poor relief law proposed by Thomas Gilbert that allowed parishes to set up their own workhouses, which Aldershot did in 1808. [4] Use of the Tichborne mansion as the Aldershott Workhouse in 1808 coincides with the passing of the Manor of Aldershot (sometimes spelt 'Aldershott' on maps of the area) to John Eggar of Bentley. In 1824 the Aldershot and Bentley parishes united under Gilbert’s Act to use the workhouse located in, and owned by, the parish of Aldershot. It could accommodate 40 individuals, and the Bentley parish paid the Aldershot parish £20 per year for its use. [5] [6]
William Newland's survey of 'Aldershott' in 1808 lists the extent of the workhouse grounds, giving a value of £12 and 10 pence for the four fields surrounding the building. [7] The building was extended between 1838 and 1840 in the Jacobean style. [1] [8]
The census record for 1841 lists Joseph Miles (1794–1861) as Governor of Aldershott Workhouse with his wife Mary Miles (1796–1862) as Matron. [9] [10] Previous to his appointment as Governor Miles was said to be 'an army pensioner, who, by reason of being lame of one leg, blind of one eye, and deaf as a post, was judged fit to enact the part of parish constable' at Aldershot. Miles was not paid for this office but obtained some money 'which sometimes amounted to the sum of two shillings within the twelve months, resulting from the capture of a stray vagrant or two'. [11] Miles later became a 'Carrier', [12] and from 1858 to his sudden death from an accident in 1861 he served as Aldershot's town crier of whom "there was quite a procession when he was presented with a new bell ... He was a lame man, and he walked underneath a canopy which was carried by four other lame men." [13]
In 1843 it was agreed that the paupers of the parish were to be removed to the Workhouse at Farnham at a charge of 3 shillings and six pence each a week. [14] At the baptism of his children in 1847 and 1849 Francis Henning was recorded as the Master of Aldershot Workhouse, which probably finally closed in the latter year.
The building became redundant as a poorhouse in 1849 when Aldershot became part of the Farnham Poor Law Union and from 1850 it was used as a school for pauper children [15] by the Farnham and Hartley Wintney School District.
When a party of Royal Engineers arrived at Aldershot and set up camp on the site of the present Princes Gardens in November 1853 the area was heathland with the only building in sight being the Union Building. It was one of five permanent structures in the area bought in 1854 by the War Department as part of the development of the new Aldershot Camp, [8] and was used by the Army from 1854 to 1879 as No 2 Station Hospital for the large military force moving into the area. [1]
The hill the building is on was named 'Hospital Hill'. Because of its small size it could only accommodate the sick of two regiments and it quickly became apparent that the Union Building could not be a permanent hospital for the number of troops in Aldershot, so huts on the other side of Hospital Hill were utilised as additional hospital accommodation, together with further huts located in the North and South Camps. [15] The building of the Cambridge Military Hospital in 1879 made the Union Building redundant as a hospital and it became the District Pay Office. Later additions were added at the rear including extensions and additional floors. [1]
The building was almost completely destroyed in a fire in 1907 but was restored and it survived an incendiary attack during World War II. [16] The building briefly served as a community centre for military families from 1986. Today it has been converted into flats. [16]
Aldershot is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, 31 mi (50 km) southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Aldershot Urban Area, a loose conurbation has a population of 243,344, making it the thirtieth-largest urban area in the UK.
In Britain, a workhouse was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. 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".
The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the Poor Relief Act 1601 and attempted to fundamentally change the poverty relief system in England and Wales. It resulted from the 1832 Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws, which included Edwin Chadwick, John Bird Sumner and Nassau William Senior. Chadwick was dissatisfied with the law that resulted from his report. The Act was passed two years after the Representation of the People Act 1832 which extended the franchise to middle-class men. Some historians have argued that this was a major factor in the PLAA being passed.
Tichborne is a village and civil parish 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Winchester in Hampshire, England.
Great Snoring is a rural village in North Norfolk by the River Stiffkey, in the east of England. It is situated approximately 25 miles (40 km) north-west from the city and county town of Norwich, and 2 miles (3 km) north from the larger village of Little Snoring.
The Andover workhouse scandal of the mid-1840s exposed serious defects in the administration of the English 'New Poor Law'. It led to significant changes in its central supervision and to increased parliamentary scrutiny. The scandal began with the revelation in August 1845 that inmates of the workhouse in Andover, Hampshire, England were driven by hunger to eat the marrow and gristle from bones which they were to crush to make fertilizer. The inmates' rations set by the local Poor Law guardians were less than the subsistence diet decreed by the central Poor Law Commission (PLC), and the master of the workhouse was diverting some of the funds, or the rations, for private gain. The guardians were loath to lose the services of the master, despite this and despite allegations of the master's drunkenness on duty and sexual abuse of female inmates. The commission eventually exercised its power to order dismissal of the master, after ordering two enquiries by an assistant-commissioner subject to a conflict of interest; the conduct of the second, more public inquiry drew criticism.
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, "43rd Elizabeth" or the Old Poor Law was passed in 1601 and created a poor law system for England and Wales.
Tongham is a village northeast of the town of Farnham in Surrey, England. The village's buildings occupy most of the west of the civil parish, adjoining the A31 and the A331. The boundaries take in Poyle Park in the east and the replacement to Runfold's manor house in the west.
Cambridge Military Hospital was a hospital completed in 1879 in Aldershot Garrison, Hampshire, England which served the various British Army camps there. During World War I, the Cambridge Hospital was the first base hospital to receive casualties directly from the Western Front. It was also the first place where plastic surgery was performed in the British Empire under Harold Gillies. It is now the residential estate Gun Hill Park.
Poor Law policy after the New Poor Law concerns the time period c. 1847–1900 after the implementation of the Poor Law Amendment Act until the beginnings of the decline of the Poor Law system at the start of the 20th century.
Leigh Union workhouse, also known as the Leigh workhouse and after 1930, Atherleigh Hospital, was a workhouse built in 1850 by the Leigh Poor Law Union on Leigh Road, Atherton in the historic county of Lancashire.
Sir Richard Tichborne, 2nd Baronet was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1597. He was a Royalist commander in the English Civil War.
The Church of St Michael the Archangel is the parish church for the town of Aldershot in Hampshire. Dating to the 12th century with later additions, there was almost certainly an earlier church on the site. The existing structure is a Grade II listed building and is located beside Manor Park.
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.
Stow Lodge is a listed building in the parish of Onehouse in Stowmarket, Suffolk. Constructed in 1781 as Union Work House, a House of Industry for the 14 parishes of the Stow Hundred, it was subsequently used as a hospital and is now residential flats.
Manor Park is an urban park in the town of Aldershot in Hampshire. A short walk from the town centre, it has been a public park since 1919. The former manor house located in the park is Grade II listed. Facilities include a play area, tennis and basketball courts and an all-concrete skate park designed and built by Fearless Ramps and which opened in 2013. Today Manor Park is owned and maintained by Rushmoor Borough Council. Since 2018 Manor Park has been the venue for the annual Picnic & Pop Music Festival. The festival has been attended by 5000 local people each year.
Aldershot Park is an urban park in the town of Aldershot in Hampshire. The park is located on Guildford Road near Aldershot Cricket Club and the Lido and is owned and maintained by Rushmoor Borough Council.
Walter Tichborne (c.1580–1637) of Aldershot in Hampshire was MP for Petersfield from 1614 to 1621.
The Aldershot and Alton lines of the LSWR were railways developed from 1849 onwards in the region in Surrey and Hampshire, England, between the Southampton main line and Guildford. First was a line from Guildford to Farnham, soon extended to Alton in 1852. The Reading, Guildford and Reigate Railway, an affiliate of the South Eastern Railway (SER), used part of that line by running powers. When the Aldershot Garrison and associated camps opened, suddenly Aldershot had a large population, both civilian and military, and the LSWR built a line from Pirbright Junction, on the Southampton main line. As well as serving Aldershot, this line gave a more direct route from London. It opened in 1870.