Genealogy Chat

Does anyone know much about workhouses in 1881. Was it common for a husband to be there but the wife to be living with relatives? I found my gggrandmother Jane Frankis living in Bethnal Green in 1881 with her daughter and daughter's family, she is described as married rather than widowed. I had assumed that her husband was dead since I couldn't find a William Frankis born in Bethnal Green in 1807 in the census. The latest edition of freeBMD has thrown up that what looks like him died in Bethnal Green in 1884 aged 76. Looking at the census again I found a William Trankis of the right age described as a silk Weaver (I know that he was a weaver from my ggrandfathers birth certificate) living in Bethnal Green Workhouse. I assume that Trankis looks like Frankis in 1881 writing. So it is likely that they are the same person. Was this normal practice for the husband to be sent to the workhouse? (was it any better than the doghouse?)

I've had this occur in my family a couple of times - in both cases it was because the person in the workhouse was seriously ill and the family couldn't look after them eg. my GG Grandfather went to Islington Workhouse when he was dying of cancer. Take a look at http://users(.)ox(.)ac(.)uk/~peter/workhouse/ it might help

thanks, that seems like a reasonable explanation.

I'm in the process of finding one of my ancestors and think have found him living in the Sunderland workhouse in 1891. His wife is not living with him but is elsewhere in Sunderland. By 1901, they were reunited and living together again. So, it goes to show that you weren't necessarily in there for good.

or maybe they just closed the workhouse down and sent them all home! I am not really sure what the workhouses were for. In todays times they seem bizarre.

I read somewhere that sometimes you got sent to the workhouse (or went volountarily, I'm not sure) if you couldn't pay a debt - once the debt was paid you were free to leave.

Hi Marcelo. I had a good look at the London workhouses trying to find missing rellies and found a couple of good sites through Google. I essence though, the workhouse was not just a poor house, it was the forerunner of the institutions for the mental ill and for those with learning difficulties. A few poor women were put into the workhouse accused of being morally defective because they had illegitimate children. Nowadays we acknowledge that they may have been victims of family or employer abuse but then it was their fault. There were a number of 'poor Laws' on the statute and at one time the punishment for an unmarried woman becoming pregnant whilst in the work house was public flogging!!! This was jst over a hundred years ago and in this country. Roger

Thanks for all your help. Its given me some idea of why he might have been there.