Inside Southwell Workhouse

Now a quaint and affluent town, it’s easy to forget Southwell once housed a brutal institution feared for miles around.  

The area boasts arguably one of the most well-preserved Victorian Workhouses in the country, now operated as a museum by The National Trust. 

Speeding back through time to its build in 1824, we would have seen that times were, to put it lightly, pretty rough. 

The 19th century saw a huge surge in Britain’s population and though a rural area Southwell and its surrounding villages were no exception.

People were scrambling for jobs and even those lucky enough to find work were struggling due to wages barely above subsistence level.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which ensured no able-bodied person could receive poor relief, along with a move to abolish outdoor relief in 1844, deemed the Workhouse a necessary evil. 

Southwell’s Workhouse was built in 1824 and was designed to hold around 160 inmates or “paupers” as they were more commonly referred to. 

Driving towards the town, the large, austere building rises up from the mist. 
Trudging up the path towards the Workhouse with my guide, Jan Overfield Shaw, later, I remark that it resembles a prison. 
“Well, it was a prison in a way,” she says. “The Workhouse was a punitive measure.” 

I feel lucky that Jan is my guide. Before getting her job here as the creative and community programme officer, she worked with homeless people for the YMCA amongst other organisations.

It’s been a long time since anyone experienced ill-treatment here, but the solemn history of the Workhouse still seems to affect her.

She tells the story with genuine compassion and understanding and moves throughout the grounds and house tenderly, respectfully. 

As we move through endless white-washed corridors and several flights of stairs, Jan tells me it was a strictly segregated environment. Men on the left, women on the right, children in the middle.

The master and matron had their quarters on the top floor, where they could see across the grounds and keep a close eye on the inmates. Displease the master or matron, and you ran the risk of going without your food ration for 48 hours. 

Conditions were harsh. Inmates worked long hours in return for their food, clothes and lodging in cramped dormitories. The work often contributed to the running of the building such as laundry, cooking, cleaning and agricultural work. Tasks used as punishment in prison, such as oakum picking, were also imposed.

A schoolroom reveals that children were educated by an on-site school mistress, but not on equal footing- boys received english, maths and history lessons whereas girls were taught basic reading and writing.

It was freezing before, but as we move downwards into the underbelly of the Workhouse, the cellars, I finally chirp up about the intense cold- how did they cope?

The Workhouse had a certain amount of coal at its disposal which was used sparingly, and all inmates were in bed by 8pm to save on candles.

The cellars, where meat was prepared and preserved, are murky and claustrophobic, and I’m glad when we ascend to the dormitories. 

As a Nottinghamshire woman in her late 20s, what would my installation into Southwell Workhouse have entailed, I ask Jan.  

The first step would probably involve me swallowing every ounce of pride I had. For even the most deject and wretched, the Workhouse was, ultimately, the last resort. 

But with the threat of starvation and exposure looming, I would have made my red-faced way up the winding country lane towards the Workhouse and rapped on the door of the main office, where the modern day equivalent of a welfare officer would assess me. 

The welfare system operated in a similar way that it does today in that I would first have to prove I hailed from a nearby parish before the “desperation- factor” of my situation could be established.  

Perhaps I had been robbed of my post as a seamstress after the industrial revolution brought with it a machine and a cheaper, faster alternative for my employer. 

Maybe I had been rejected by my family and peers after getting myself “into trouble”- a predicament all too common in a time when sexual exploitation was rife and contraception virtually non-existent.

Even if I had rocked up with a legtimate family in tow, I would have been swiftly separated from my husband and children as soon as my place at the Workhouse was secured. 

Then the “de-humanisation” process could really begin. There were no guards to keep inmates in check- but after being hosed down, de-loused and stripped off my belongings, clothes and loved ones, I’m pretty sure even I wouldn’t have had the heart nor mind for disobedience anyway. Besides, what was my alternative?

“By entering the Workhouse, you had committed a crime by default,” says Jan. “The crime being that you had failed.” 

But as the 20th century beckoned, a revolution was brewing. 

Come the 1860s, inmates were beginning to become employed by the Workhouse and paid for their labour.

In 1871, shortcomings were found of the healthcare provision in the Workhouse and Firbeck House, an infirmary, was built in 1871. 

“There was a shift towards thinking,” says Jan. “A shift towards thinking- we can’t treat people like this anymore.” 

By the 1920s, the Workhouse had become a training centre in its own right. Women inmates began qualifying as nurses at Firbeck House which was now being used by the wider public. 

But for all this progress, the motif of the original Victorian Workhouse left a nasty stain that never quite washed out- and remains to this day.

Jan leads me to one of the dormitories that has been kitted out as it would have been more than a century after the Workhouse’s build, in the 1970s. 

This one is a lot more more inviting than the 19th century dorms- with a gas
fireplace, colourful bedspreads and a kitchenette. 

By this time, the Workhouse was being operated as a “public assistance institution” where families would stay while waiting to be re-housed. Victims of domestic violence would also often flee here. 

Children staying at the institution were bullied when attending the nearby school, and though Firbeck House, now named Minster View, was now a fully-fledged NHS hospital, pregnant guests were often adamant they would not have their babies there due to its embarrassing association with the Workhouse. 

“The memory of the Workhouse is very, very powerful and haunts people even now after being passed down,” Jan goes on. 

“You could say it’s always had a stigma attached to it- the stigma of poverty. Anyone who has been in poverty knows how utterly horrendous it is, what it’s like to be an outcast in the community. The Workhouse has kind of become a symbol for that. It’s a reminder that housing- then and now- is vulnerable.” 

This leads me to a question I’ve been meaning to ask since I got here- what would Jan say to the political figures who want workhouses reinstated? 

She says: “Simple. I’d tell them to come and visit. They’ll see it’s not a system fitting for the 21st century.” 

What impresses me most about this place is that the staff and volunteers have turned the Workhouse on its head by using it as a makeshift vehicle to campaign against austerity and inequality. 

This month marked the launch of the site’s Struggle for Suffrage exhibition and the Workhouse is dotted with installations and banners condemning the pay gap, exploitation and abuse. 

I am delighted to hear that the Workhouse’s women’s research group delved deep into the site’s past and discovered evidence that women at the institution “worked their way up” to a place on the electoral role after training as nurses, matrons, seamstresses and business owners. 

To discover additonal projects the Workhouse has undertaken in order to champion inclusivity, you only have to look across the yard to Caudwell House, which is now being run by Nottinghamshire County Council as a home for young people with disabilities. 

In the Victorian Era, physically and mentally disabled people would have been shunned and segregated upon admittance to the Workhouse- now, these young people work closely with staff and volunteers, overseeing events at the museum and enjoying a close involvement with its running and the community. 

The Workhouse also offers school trips- during my visit, a bus-load of schoolchildren arrive, looking up at the building curiously. 

Volunteers dress in Victorian clothing and the pupils learn about the Workhouse in an “immersive” experience which sees them line up in the yard to be inspected by a finger-wagging matron. 

Jan says: “I am passionate about the idea you can learn from history and I think this is a great example of that.” 

The Rev. J T Becher, founder of Southwell Workhouse, once said: “An empty workhouse is a successful one.” 

Hopefully this fascinating place will continue to prompt this reflection for generations to come.