George Cruikshank's illustration for Dickens' "Oliver Twist"

The very word 'workhouse' would be sufficient to strike terror into most working class people in Victorian times.
To anyone unfortunate enough to fall on hard times, it represented the absolute last resort - a place from which there could often be no return to a normal life.

Such institutions were deliberately designed to provide the unfortunate inhabitants with a harsh and uncomfortable existence.

The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was implemented to reduce the escalating costs of poor relief and to discourage claimants.
Local parishes had formerly borne the cost of supporting the population who were unable to provide for themselves but the new Act required a central body to be established - the Poor Law Commission for England and Wales.

The Commission was responsible for the setting up of Parish Unions to administer poor relief, each Union to be managed by a board of guardians, elected by local ratepayers and property owners.

A requirement was the establishment of ' poorhouses ' whereby all claimants would be accommodated under the same roof with strict rules adhering for all inmates.

One of the main principles of the 1834 Act was that of 'less eligibility' - living conditions inside the institution must be 'less preferable' to that of the lowest paid common labourer outside.

By 1839, 600 unions had been formed and 350 workhouses had been built although there was still considerable opposition to the system, mainly in the North of England.

Strict segregation by age and sex was enforced - wives and husbands, brothers and sisters were separated on entry and any contact within the building not permitted.

Occupants on admittance were stripped, bathed and provided with an ill-fitting 'uniform' of cheap, rough-textured material often ' passed down ' from other inmates.

A normal day would be laid down as follows:

Rise	Breakfast	Worktasks	Dinner	Worktasks	Supper	Bed
6am	6:30 to 7am	7am to 12 noon	12 noon to 1pm	1pm to 6pm	6pm to 7pm	8pm

Work tasks for able bodied men might involve stone-breaking, digging or grinding corn.
Women were set to washing or scrubbing duties or performing needlework.

The Bedwellty Poor Law Union was formed in 1849 and the Union Workhouse, nicknamed locally ' The Spike', was constructed at Tredegar in 1852 to accommodate 311 inmates.


In latter days, following the abolition of the Workhouse System in 1929, the building was to become more familiar as St. James' Hospital, finally being demolished in 1979.