George Hodson and the Loughborough Union Workhouse

Last week I shared some information about the Loughborough Union Workhouse with you, that was prompted by a visit to Southwell Workhouse. This week's post (which was where last week's was headed but didn't quite make it!) is about the workhouse, George Hodson, a tramp and the Zeppelin raid of 31 January 1916.

The Loughborough Union Workhouse was built to a design by George Gilbert Scott and W. Bonython Moffatt in 1838. Whether the building wasn't big enough, or whether there was an increase or change in "inmate", George Hodson designed an extension to the workhouse, in about 1874. This was built specifically to accommodate vagrants. If I've understood this correctly, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 did not cater for vagrants, because this was regarded as a matter for the police. However, in around 1837, under a new regulation, workhouses could offer help to vagrants if their need was urgent, and after this, accommodation for vagrants became an integral part of the design of newer workhouses.

The Union Workhouse in Loughborough, having been built in 1838, then needed a wing especially for vagrants, and this is what George Hodson designed around 1874. Hodson was a surveyor of the local Board of Health, and in 1906 was responsible for designing the gravity dam at the Blackbrook Reservoir.

Sorry, back to vagrants! This purpose-built vagrant extension block would have been very basic, even more so than the rest of the workhouse. In the early days of such accommodation, loose straw may have been provided as a bed, or there may have been low hammocks, and people coming to the workhouse for such help would have had to queue from late afternoon onwards, and even then might not have got a place for the night. However, around 1870 a new design was taking hold, which was based on a single vagrant using a sleeping cell (perhaps with a fold-up bed) and this would have possibly led through to a work room. Given that Loughborough's vagrant accommodation was constructed in about 1874, then it seems likely that this built to the new cellular design.

Possessions of things like alcohol, tobacco and money would have been confiscated if found on the vagrant, although sometimes ways were found around this! 

Like other people in the workhouse, the vagrant would be expected to wear workhouse clothing, and would be given a nightshirt after having bathed, and whilst their own clothes were being fumigated. A meal was provided, and the vagrant would not be allowed out of the workhouse until the following morning. After about 1882, when the Casual Poor Act was passed, workhouses could keep vagrants in for two nights, and they would be expected to do a day's work (for example, stone crushing or oakum picking) before being let out. If the work being done was stone crushing, the stones would have to be crushed small enough to pass through the grilles in the door to the work room used by the vagrant.
   
At Loughborough workhouse on the evening of 31 January 1916, a vagrant was admitted who had somehow been caught up in the Zeppelin bombings earlier that evening. Although a register of the inhabitants of the workhouse was kept, and "inmates" were listed, for example, in the census returns, it appears that records of vagrants coming to the workhouse are sparse, so it is almost impossible to know who was in the vagrant part of the workhouse, and when or how often they were there. 

According to Mr G. Walsh*:

"There is a want of uniformity as regards detention and the task of work in the various casual wards, and it is worthy of notice that at Loughborough, where the guardians after a short trial of two nights' detention, decided to revert to a one night's detention only, the number of vagrants has increased from 10,751 in 1906 to 12,058 in 1907."

So, who the vagrant who was admitted to the workhouse was I don't know, and given the numbers admitted, it would be almost impossible to find out. Nonetheless, it would be very interesting to find out, and learn what he actually experienced on that dreadful night. So, if you have any more information, I'd love to hear from you!

Below are some pictures of Southwell Workhouse. This was built some time before Loughborough's but it gives you an idea of what such places were like. I haven't been able to track down any online pictures of the workhouse, but there is a picture of the Boardroom, and of the Loughborough Board of Guardians: I think the doorway of Southwell Workhouse is very similar to the Loughborough one. 

The entrance to Southwell Workhouse

Drying racks, possibly for vagrant's clothes?

Stone crushing yard at Southwell Workhouse

Down below stairs at Southwell Workhouse

Down below stairs at Southwell Workhouse

The separate yards at Southwell Workhouse

* Mr G. Walsh reporting on the situation in Leicestershire, Lincolnshire etc., in 1907. In: Dawson, William Harbutt (1910). The vagrancy problem: the case for measures of restraint for tramps, loafers, and unemployables. Westminster: P.S. King & Son.

  
         

      

Loughborough Union Workhouse

A couple of months ago I finally got around to visiting the workhouse at Southwell, which is now a National Trust property, but was once a workhouse for the surrounding areas, where people who were down on their luck could go to get a roof over their head and food in their belly. 

I hope I haven't made that sound too attractive, for it certainly wasn't, and for many reasons people would try and avoid getting into the position where they needed help from a workhouse. Could it have had something to do with the prison-like buildings (I searched for workhouse plans on the internet, and followed this up with a search for prison plans and couldn't help but notice the similarity of design, particularly with Wandsworth Prison)? Or perhaps it was the strict wearing of uniforms that deterred folk? Or was it the arduous tasks, like stone crushing and oakum picking that people were put to that kept them away from the workhouse? Or maybe the food wasn't up to much - relatively plain, but enough to keep you going? Or maybe it was the idea that you would be separated from your family that meant you only went to the workhouse as a truly last and desperate measure?

Of course, workhouses across the country, whilst being similar, were not all the same, some being more generous with food rations than others, some having kitchen gardens where "inmates" would work, etc.. 

The Loughborough Workhouse was originally on the site now occupied by the Post Office Sorting Office, on Nottingham Road, at its junction with the A60. The new Loughborough Union Workhouse was built in 1838, after the passing of the Poor Law Amendment Act (the New Poor Law), which meant that people had to enter the workhouse in order to seek help, rather than be given money by the local parish. It was located on Derby Road, behind what are now Oxford and Leopold Streets, and on Regent Street. It was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and W. Bonython Moffatt, to a design which they used very successfully in many locations. In about 1871, the former workhouse on Nottingham Road became the Star Foundry, under Edwin Cook.

Following the Local Government Act of 1929, which abolished Poor Law Unions and the Board of Guardians, workhouses were controlled by public assistance authorities which were run by local councils. And so it was in 1930 that the Loughborough Union Workhouse became a public assistance institution and was renamed Hastings House. This was followed by another change around 1948 when it was renamed as the Regent Hospital: as might be inferred from the name it became a hospital as well as an old people's home.

I used to live at the Regent Street end of Oxford Street in the early 1980s and I remember Regent Hospital as it was then. I also remember it being demolished and new houses being built on the site. Regrettably, I don't remember exactly when this happened, nor did I take any photographs. 

As well as the new houses that were built, a new care home, Huntingdon Court, was also built on the site.

Pictures of the workhouse have been hard to come by, but there is one of the Board of Guardians outside the workhouse in the early twentieth century, a picture of the Guardians' Boardroom, and the workhouse appears in the background of this picture of terraced houses on Union Lane/Street.

There is also an interesting article on the workhouse, and other Loughborough information on this site.

And now I've run out of time, and haven't even got to the point I was heading to! Pop back to the blog next week for more on the connection between George Hodson, the Loughborough Union Workhouse, Zeppelin raids and a tramp! In the meantime, below are some photographs from my recent visit to Southwell Workhouse.

Southwell Workhouse with the kitchen garden to the front

The water pump at Southwell Workhouse

A boot scraper at Southwell Workhouse

The stone crushing yard at Southwell Workhouse

A view today from below stairs at Southwell Workhouse

Below stairs at Southwell Workhouse

Pots at Southwell Workhouse

Beds for the elderly and infirm at Southwell Workhouse

An upstairs room in Southwell Workhouse

The entrance to Southwell Workhouse

Clothes drying at Southwell Workhouse

 

Below stairs at Southwell Workhouse

Below stairs at Southwell Workhouse

The separate yards at Southwell Workhouse