Workhouses: Hell

First, the Acts of 1572, 1597 and 1601 were set to help the poor. In 1601, the Poor Law Act was passed, and the poor that was receiving help could live at home. However, the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834 made the poor that who were receiving help live in the workhouses and work hard for the people giving them help. People who were aged, mentally disabled, orphaned, poor, umemployed, unmarried women worked in the workhouses. The workhouses provided free medical care, shelter, food, and training for certain skills (did not include reading and writing). Inside the workhouses, were everthing peole needed: bakery, clinic, classrooms, dining rooms, and many other stores. The workhouses were feared because the government (which feared encouraging umemployed people) so that they made sure workhouses were feared so umemployed would keep out of it.The people would be first separated into different groups according gender and age (families were split up. The people had to wear uniforms (so the other people outside knew they were working in workhouses) after being stripped and bathed. The working conditions were harsh and food had no taste. Children were often sold to mines and other factories. One of the jobs was oakum picker, which was pulling part ropes that are old and covered with tar, which injured the fingers alot. If the worker was healthy and young, they would break rocks into small portions for roads. They would only receive a bed and small portions of food, without being paid. Other jobs were digging, cutting wood, grinding corn, bone crushing (banned in 1845 because workers were eating the flesh), cooking washing, scrubbing and cleaning. Males usually had to break 350 kgs of stones, and to pick eight pounds of oakum, or nine hours of cutting wood and digging. Females had to pick four pounds of beaten oakum, or nine hours of cleaning, or needlework. At last, in 1929, the Local Government Act was passed, which abolished the activity of workhouses, and responsibilities of giving help to the poor were assigned to county councils. However, in Victorian era, the workhouses were viewed as hell, and the word was avoided like the plague: the place that is worse than prisons.