Inside the workhouse Crooks found a state of things that seems incredible to-day. Bumbledom held sway over paupers and Guardians alike.
There were Guardians who had never been inside the workhouse once. When Crooks attempted to enter as a Guardian he found that the Master had power to shut the gate upon him. Without the Master's permission, except on the regular House Committee days, Guardians had no legal right inside the workhouse at all.
The two Labour men raised such a hubbub over this anomaly that Sir Henry Fowler issued an order giving a Guardian the right to enter the workhouse at any reasonable hour. As a result there began, not only in Poplar but all over the country, a marked improvement in the treatment of old people in workhouses.
Here was a distinct score at the first venture. With the right of admission established, Crooks made full use of it. He found most of the officers hostile. So much so, that during a fire that broke out in the workhouse bakery, bringing the brigade engines round, one of the officers exclaimed, in the presence of the others when the fire was at its height:—
"The only thing wanting now is that Crooks and Lansbury should be put on the top of it."
The cheers with which this remark was received were soon to give way to grave concern. It was clear the two Labour men meant to put an end to many things. Several of the officers were summarily suspended by Crooks one morning when he appeared on the scene unexpectedly.
A woman inmate had contrived to escape from the workhouse. She came round to his house and knocked him up. In consequence of an alarming story she told him respecting the conditions under which a fellow inmate had died in her arms that very night, Crooks hurried round to the institution and suspended certain of the officers on the spot.
The officers whom Crooks had suspended were dismissed by the Board. Nor were they by any means the last to be dismissed or to take their departure, for other scandals were brought to light.
"We found the condition of things in the House almost revolting," Crooks stated in evidence before the Local Government Board Inquiry of 1906. "The place was dirty. The stores were empty. The inmates had not sufficient clothes, and many were without boots to their feet. The food was so bad that the wash-tubs overflowed with what the poor people could not eat. It was almost heart-breaking to go round the place and hear the complaints and see the tears of the aged men and women.
"'Poverty's no crime, but here it's treated like crime,' they used to say.