Cindy Unwin and Dr. Amy Harris, History
I presented my research as a poster in the Mary Lou Fulton Mentored Student Research Conference and won first place in the History category. In my research I focused on answering two questions: 1) What was the demographic of the Lambeth, Surrey workhouse and how does it apply to a case study of my ancestor? 2) What happened to the second generation of workhouse inhabitants.
Mary Ann Goodenough was born in Warborough, Oxforshire, England in the year, 1846. Her father Joseph worked as an agricultural laborer. Mary left home and had her first child Arthur Charles Goodenough in the Lambeth, Surrey workhouse in 1866 when she was just twenty years old. Arthur Charles was illegitimate and his father does not appear on his birth certificate. Mary probably entered the workhouse during her pregnancy and left one or two years later when she married Charles Hobbs in 1867. From the census we know that Charles Hobbs was a bricklayer and a laborer. Charles and Mary had a child ten months after their marriage. It is most likely that Charles was the father of Mary’s first son Arthur Charles (Charles, probably after his father) but that the couple held off on getting married until Charles earned more money. The rules of the workhouse were such that if Charles and Mary were married prior to Arthur’s birth, Charles would have had to live in the workhouse with Mary and do the labor required there. Charles’ wage would have been less in the workhouse, so they may have decided that Mary go to the workhouse for public assistance to save money while Charles earned some money for their family elsewhere. Does this demographic reflect the majority of those within the workhouse?
Upon the examination of the births in the Lambeth, Surrey workhouse it was quickly discovered that the majority of the children were illegitimate. A sample of the births between 1803-1860 showed that of the 685 children born these years in the workhouse, 188 births were legitimate and 497 children were illegitimate. This means that 72.5% of the children born in the workhouse were illegitimate while only 27.4% of the children born in the workhouse were legitimate. My ancestor Mary Ann Goodenough reflects the majority of the workhouse demographic. Her illegitimate son Arthur did not have a father listed on his birth certificate, which reflected many of the workhouses entries of illegitimate births, which also did not have a father listed. She like many other women in the workhouse were temporarily in the workhouse because they were young, single mothers that were not able to support their family on their own.
The data for this research comes from 670 names that I extracted from the Lambeth, Surrey workhouse from 1803-1890. Extracted information includes the names of the children, the legitimacy of the child, and the occupation of the father. I was interested in investigating whether or not there was a pattern as to the occupation of the father. His occupation would provide some indication as to the financial and economic status of the poor in England. From the 670 entries, only 377 contained information regarding the occupation of the father. This was partially because many of the entries did not include any information about the father. Ten of these 377 entries were not legible leaving only 367 occupations for examination (see figure 1).
Upon closer examination of the father’s occupation the most common job was laborer, with 55 father’s from the workhouse in this profession. It exceeded all others by far with 15% of the men working in this area. The second most common profession was that of Seaman, followed closely by servant, shoemaker and carpenter. What do all of these professions have in common? The amount of work available was not always steady, which could force migration in order to remain employed. With work in these areas the men were not always able to support their families because of the undependable nature of their work.
Charles Hobbs, the father of Arthur Charles, the son of Mary Ann Goodenough, fits into this demographic. According to the census he worked as a “labourer” but this changed on occasion. At times he changed jobs and worked as a bricklayer and as a paraffin factory worker, both of which were physically difficult and sometimes classified as a laborer.
Not only are the parents a good case study of what life was like for those in the workhouse but the son Arthur Charles is also a good case study to help understand what happened to the second generation of the poor. All the records found for Arthur indicate that he never returned to the workhouse. During eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain, people found it hard to escape their poor upbringing. When the births extracted from the workhouse records were compared to the lists of inmates in the Lambeth workhouse years later, there were only 10 possible cases of children returning. The number of children born in the workhouse returning to poverty could be much higher than what I found in this study because I only focused on one workhouse. They may have returned to a different workhouse or used a different surname which would not have been evident in this study. Some of the women may have used a married name so they would have passed unnoticed in the comparison study.
The Hobbs family is a useful indication of the general trends and demographics of those in the workhouse. Mary went to the workhouse in an attempt to support herself and her child. Her husband Charles Hobbs, worked as a laborer and probably suffered financially which required Mary to seek public assistance during her first pregnancy and birth. Charles’ occupation agreed with the majority of other workhouse father’s occupations. The unsteady nature of manual labor work required many to turn to the workhouses for help. People found that migration was the best way to maintain a steady income. Arthur, like many children born in the workhouse, did not end up trapped by their humble beginnings. It appears that Arthur and others rarely returned to the workhouse where they were born.