Loughborough's Second Workhouse

Following her very interesting article about Mary Tate of Burleigh Hall on this blog last year, and delving more deeply than my own earlier posts on the topic [1] in this guest blog post for lynneaboutloughborough's eleventh birthday, Dr Pamela Fisher describes the circumstances which led to the construction of the Loughborough Union Workhouse, which was the second workhouse in Loughborough. This building was a familiar sight to many of us, especially if we lived, as I did, in the Oxford Street area of town, although thankfully we are unlikely to have spent any time within its confines – but we probably knew of people who had. 

Here's what Pam has to say about the workhouse ...

Loughborough's Second Workhouse

By Pamela J. Fisher  

The parish of Loughborough contained the townships of Knightthorpe and Woodthorpe, which looked after their own poor. Within Loughborough, a workhouse had been built on Sparrow Hill (as it then was) in 1749–52. This originally housed paupers who were set to work spinning and knitting, but by 1834 policies had changed and this housed only the elderly and those unable to work through disability. This blog post is about the building of Loughborough’s second workhouse in 1838, which replaced this earlier building.

By the early 19th century, the cost of poor relief was rising rapidly across the country. Parishes were managing this by employing a range of different strategies and scales of allowances. New legislation in 1834 swept away these arrangements and replaced them by a single system that grouped parishes together in Poor Law Unions. Each Union was managed by an elected board of guardians, acting under instructions issued by the London-based Poor Law Commissioners. Each would maintain a workhouse that was designed to be a deterrent, with living conditions deliberately worse than those of the poorest independent labourer. Once the workhouse was built, the Guardians were instructed not to pay any poor relief to able-bodied people, other than in cases of short-term sickness, forcing them to enter the workhouse if they had no relatives to help. Workhouse residents had to wear a workhouse uniform and have their head shaved to maintain hygiene. Families would be split up. Food and accommodation were basic, and unpleasant menial work was expected from all able-bodied residents. Anyone absconding could be prosecuted for the theft of the workhouse clothes they were wearing.

Loughborough Poor Law Union was formed in 1837 and comprised 14 parishes and townships in north Leicestershire (Loughborough, Knightthorpe, Woodthorpe, Belton, Burton-on-the-Wolds, Charley, Cotes, Hathern, Hoton, Long Whatton, Prestwold, Shepshed, Thorpe Acre with Dishley and Wymeswold) and ten in south Nottinghamshire (Costock, East Leake, Normanton-on-Soar, Rempstone, Stanford-on-Soar, Sutton Bonnington, Thorpe-in-the-Glebe, West Leake, Willoughby-on-the-Wolds and Wysall). Twenty-eight guardians were elected, four for Loughborough, one for Knightthorpe, one for Woodthorpe, two for Shepshed and one for each of the remaining 20 parishes. Loughborough’s first guardians were William Paget, John Cartwright, Benjamin Churchill and James North.

Loughborough, Shepshed and Hoton already had parish workhouses, Shepshed with accommodation for 80, Loughborough for 70 and Hoton for six, but these were too small for the new Union. When the guardians met formally as a board for the first time on 11th September 1837 they were aware that the Commissioners required them to find a site large enough to contain a workhouse for 350 men, women and children, which was to cost no more than £550. Fuller directions were issued on 6 October: the plans were to be approved by the Commissioners, the building was to cost less than £6,000 and it was to be completed within 12 months. The parishes in the union were each to contribute a share of the costs.

The guardians agreed to purchase a plot of land for £550 that stood at the edge of the town, south of Derby Road and to the west of Regent Street (then Lower Regent Street). Wood’s 1837 plan of Loughborough shows this area shortly before the purchase and identifies the owners as John and Edward Cooper (Map 1). 

Map1: Wood's Plan of Loughborough, 1837, courtesy of Loughborough Library

On 26th September 1837 the Board invited interested architects to forward their plans for the building, at a scale of one-eighth of an inch to one foot, drawings of the ‘front and side elevations – longitudinal section and perspective view of exterior’ and the rate the architect wanted to supervise the construction. These were to be ‘marked by a motto or cypher’ and sent with a sealed envelope containing the name and address of the architect. The design chosen was by George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt.

Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811–78) was one of the leading architects of the Gothic Revival in England. His major works include many churches, the Midland Grand Hotel next to St Pancras station and the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, London, but he was also responsible for the design of many workhouses. Scott trained as an architect, and in late 1834 he was contacted by a friend, Sampson Kempthorne, who had been invited by the Poor Law Commissioners to produce workhouse designs. Kempthorne advised Scott that the premises next door to Kempthorne’s, on London’s Regent Street, had become vacant, and if Scott wished to take them Kempthorne could ‘find employment for his leisure time’ helping with the designs. Scott took the premises, but in early 1835 he received news of the sudden death of his father. This prompted him to decide that his ‘chances in life’ depended upon him establishing his own architectural business.

The New Poor Law of 1834 had created over 500 Poor Law Unions in England and Wales, and a majority of these would need to build a new workhouse. This provided a huge opportunity for Scott to start a practice that could draw on his experience gained with Kempthorne. His first four commissions were for new workhouses in Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire, where he had family contacts, and he employed William Bonython Moffatt to help with the plans. Moffatt and Scott had both been articled to the same firm, and Moffatt already had his own commission to design a new workhouse in Wiltshire. The two men soon became business partners.

Scott later recounted those early days in his Recollections, published in 1879:

‘We went every week to Peele’s coffee-house [in London] to see the country papers, and to find advertisements of pending competitions [for workhouse designs]. Moffatt then ran down to the place to get up information. On his return, we set to work, with violence, to make the design, and to prepare the competition drawings, often working all night as well as all day. He would then start off by the mail [coach – the railway network still being in the future], travel all night, meet the board of guardians, and perhaps win the competition, and return during the next night to set to work on another design.’ Between 1837 and 1841, Scott and Moffatt designed and supervised the building of at least 37 workhouses, with a further six by Scott alone, and one by Moffatt. These stretched from Cornwall through the south-western and midland counties to Lincolnshire and Essex. In Leicestershire Scott and Moffatt were also responsible for the workhouse in Lutterworth. Interestingly Scott was later employed by the parish churches of both Loughborough and Lutterworth in connection with their restorations.

The design for Loughborough workhouse is a variation on one of Kempthorne’s plans. Scott’s plans do not survive, but maps of the town show four ranges of buildings forming the sides of a square (Map 2). 

Map 2: From Ordnance Survey Plan of 1886, National Library of Scotland CC-BY (NLS)

These would probably have contained the work rooms on three sides, with the fourth side, facing Derby Road, containing the main entrance flanked by the board room (to the south) and a chapel (to the north). Three buildings stretched in a straight line across the centre, the central one containing the accommodation for the master and mistress, with the others containing the accommodation and sick wards for the poor, men on one side and women on the other. Walls at right angles to this range created four enclosed recreation areas for men, women, boys and girls. It is not clear where the children would have slept.

On 27th February 1838, following the approval of the plan by the Poor Law Commissioners, the Board of Guardians advertised for sealed tenders for the construction. The nine tenders submitted were opened on 20 March 1838 and ranged from £5,647 to £6,600. Inevitably the lowest was the preferred option, but the contractors, George Myers and Richard Wilson from Hull, were not known to the guardians, who delayed acceptance until they had made enquiries about their suitability. They were awarded the contract on 12th April. Scott later recalled ‘The contractor of a part of the work was a strange rough mason from Hull, named Myers. While engaged under me at Loughborough, he competed with success for the erection of a Roman Catholic Church at Derby, nearly the first which Pugin built’. George Myers (1803–75) had served his apprenticeship under the master mason at Beverley Minster, and after his commission for St Mary’s, Derby (awarded to Myers and Wilson), went on to build most of Pugin’s churches and four Catholic cathedrals, including Birmingham and Nottingham (mostly without Richard Wilson, following the dissolution of their partnership in 1844). Loughborough workhouse was the first large contract awarded to Myers and Wilson, and apparently their first contract outside Hull.

Iron bedsteads were purchased for the workhouse (from Bristol!) in February 1839, and the new building opened (Fig. 1). The old parish workhouse closed, and was altered to provide a barracks for a detachment of the army. James Massey and his wife were appointed master and mistress of the new workhouse when it opened, but James Massey was dismissed in October 1839 on account of his unsatisfactory ‘conduct and general efficiency’. John James, ‘an inmate of the house’, was employed as schoolmaster from the outset and given a contract in April 1839. Hannah Atherstone was appointed schoolmistress in May 1839, but was served with notice in October. Another inmate was appointed as nurse on the sick wards, under the direction of the workhouse medical officer.

Fig 1: Part of the workhouse building, courtesy of Loughborough Library

Loughborough’s overseers of the poor had advised the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834 that vagrancy was an issue in the town, and a ‘mendicity ward’ was added to the workhouse in 1839 for ‘vagrants’, where temporary relief could be given to the homeless. This was replaced by a ‘vagrants’ block’ of separate sleeping cells in 1874, designed by George Hodson of Loughborough.

Through scandals that made national headlines, some of the workhouses of the New Poor Law deserved the notorious reputation that they all gained by association, yet although Victorian society viewed some paupers as ‘undeserving’, many recognised that the elderly poor and the sick might be in the workhouse through no fault of their own. Details of the 12 ‘sick wards’ in Loughborough Union workhouse in 1867 paint a picture of a caring institution for these residents. It is possible some short-term changes were hastily introduced when the guardians were told that their wards were to be inspected as part of a parliamentary enquiry, but there is a limit to how much equipment could be acquired and brought in at short notice. Although the focus of this blog is on the building of the workhouse, it is therefore worth including some of the inspection comments here:

‘In the female sick wards each patient has the following articles for her own use exclusively; viz., a tea tray, tea cloth, towel, comb and brush, soap, wash-hand basin, basket for clothes, cup and saucer and plate, locker (with drawer, shelf, and open cupboard), urinal, and cape. There are arm chairs, easy chairs, rocking chairs, flannel gowns and slippers, coloured and other screens, tables, lockers, cupboards, water cushions, mackintosh sheeting (but without funnels), foot and chest warmers, medicine glasses and pots, bed rests, a library, prints, illustrated periodicals, benches with backs, some cushions, pottery plates and mugs, cocoa fibre matting, carpets, and clocks.’

The board of guardians assembled for a photograph at an unknown date (Fig. 2). 

Fig 2: The board of guardians outside the workhouse, courtesy of Loughborough Library

Could this be the last board marking the end of an era, or is this slightly earlier? The board was disbanded in 1930, and the premises were transferred to Loughborough Borough Council to become a public assistance institution known as Hastings House. It became an NHS hospital in 1948, and was renamed Regent Hospital c.1981. Regent Hospital closed in 1992, when Loughborough’s new Community Hospital opened on Epinal Way. The former workhouse buildings were then demolished, with the site redeveloped for housing (Pleasant Close, Speeds Pingle and Armitage Close).

Pam Fisher

Leicestershire Victoria County History Trust

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Notes

[1] Following a visit to Southwell Workhouse, which is owned by the National Trust, I wrote a few articles about Loughborough’s Union Workhouse, and George Hodson’s connection to it 

There is a further photograph of the workhouse from the rear on the Gilbert family website. 

Aerial views can be seen on the Remember Loughborough Facebook group 

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Image credits

Map 1, Fig. 1 and Fig. 2: Loughborough Library

Map 2: National Library of Scotland CC-BY (NLS) https://maps.nls.uk/

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Sources

Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland: G/7/8a/1–2 (guardians’ minutes, Loughborough Union); G/7/8c/1 (building committee minutes, Loughborough Union); G/7/32/1 (building contract, Loughborough Union).

British Newspaper Archive: Leicester Chronicle, 30 Sept. 1837, 31 Aug. 1839; Leicester Journal, 9 Mar. 1838, 25 Oct. 1839.

Parliamentary Papers: Poor Law Commissioners, First Annual Report (1835 (500) xxxv), Appendix A; Provincial Workhouses, Report of Dr Edward Smith (1867–8 (4) lx).

G.G. Scott (ed. G. Stamp), Personal and Professional Recollections (Stamford, 1995).

K.A. Morrison, ‘The New-Poor-Law workhouses of George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt’, Architectural History, 40 (1997), 184–203.

P. Spencer-Silver, ‘George Myers, 1803–75, stonemason, builder, contractor’, Construction History, 5 (1989), 47–57.

K. Morrison, The Workhouse: A Study of Poor-Law Buildings in England (RCHM/English Heritage, 1999).

P. Higginbotham, https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Loughborough/

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About Dr Pamela Fisher

Dr Pamela Fisher works with Leicestershire Victoria County History Trust and is currently researching and writing a social and cultural history of Loughborough since 1750. This will be followed by a history of the town’s industries. Both will be published as part of the national Victoria County History series of books. You can follow progress on Twitter and Facebook (@LeicsVCHT) or make contact through their website https://leicestershirehistory.co.uk/ to be added to their mailing list for Newsletters and updates. 

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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

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