For all who did not conscientiously object, there were to be public prayers daily before breakfast and after supper; and Divine service within the workhouse every Sunday, at which attendance was compulsory on all members of the Church of England, not being children or sick. It was obligatory to appoint a chaplain, whose duty it was to preach every Sunday, to examine and catechise the children at least once a month, and to visit the sick. It is, however, to be noted that it was directed that "the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper" was not to be administered in the workhouse, except to "the sick and disabled inmates": though the chaplain was allowed to permit any other inmates to communicate along with the sick, if he thought fit.[269] Gradually, however, workhouses got regular "chapels" within their walls, though without any express direction or sanction of the Central Authority for their establishment or equipment; and the Central Authority then allowed, when a chapel existed, the administration of the Sacrament, if the bishop sanctioned it.[270] No labour, except household work and cooking, was to be performed on Sunday; nor (as was added in 1842) on Christmas Day and Good Friday. The Anglican children were to be prepared for confirmation by the chaplain, who might be assisted by the schoolmaster or schoolmistress.[271] Originally no provision was made for permitting any of the paupers ever to leave the workhouse to attend Divine service outside, and the Central Authority long held to this position. Presently it began to consider possible relaxations for the aged, the widows with families, and the children.[272] In 1842 it was expressly left open to the guardians to allow such inmates as they thought fit, to whatever class they belonged, to go out to church or chapel, in the custody of the master or porter, on Sunday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day.[273] In strange contradiction of the dictum that the workhouse was not to be looked on as a place for the punishment of past misconduct, this privilege of going out to church or chapel was to be forbidden to any woman who had an illegitimate child,[274] a disqualification not incorporated in the General Consolidated Order of 1847. And as the master or porter could not be required to go to a Dissenting chapel, some other regulation was to be made by the guardians for the case of Dissenters, "such as inducing the ministers of the different congregations to certify the attendance," with "the times of the commencement and end of the service."[275]
It was an essential part of the policy of the Central Authority that any workhouse inmate over sixteen could leave the house on giving reasonable notice—at first defined as three hours, and then left more vague, but explained to mean sufficient to enable the master to make the necessary entries, return the pauper's own clothes, etc., and to let the discharge take place in working hours. The option was, however, with the head of the family in each case; and if the head was "able-bodied"—it is not clear whether this was to be in the "indoor" or the "outdoor" sense of that term—the whole family had to leave with him (or her), unless the board of guardians chose to allow an exception. In particular an able-bodied man was not to be allowed to leave his wife and children in the workhouse, whilst he sought work. If he insisted on going out, the wife and children were also to be discharged with him.[276] It was, in fact, to be a cardinal feature of the workhouse that so far as any person over sixteen was concerned there should be no power of detention. Even if paupers persisted in repeatedly passing in and out at short intervals—it might be "for improper purposes"; even if "persons of weak intellect" or of "confirmed vagrant habits" made it "a practice to return again after a short absence, generally in a most abject and loathsome state";[277] even if women persisted in returning to the workhouse year after year to be confined of a succession of illegitimate children;[278] or if sick paupers demanded their discharge at a time when to go out would "damage their own health," or even, if they had an infectious disease, "endanger the health of others,"[279] they were still, after a warning, to be permitted freely to leave when they chose. To this total lack of power to detain there were only three exceptions. Children who were doubly orphaned, or deserted by both parents, might be detained if under sixteen; the guardians (though without statutory authority) being assumed to be in loco parentis. A person of unsound mind, duly certified as such, could be detained; but this power did not apply to persons of merely defective intellect or feeble-minded. Finally, as we have already mentioned, the practice of four hours' detention of vagrants in the casual wards was introduced by the Central Authority, under the implicit authority of the Acts of 1842 and 1844.[280] On the other hand, although no person could insist on admission to a workhouse, and the board of guardians could (subject to their obligation to relieve him in some way, if actually destitute) legally turn a pauper out of the workhouse who did not wish to leave, the Central Authority advised that, as "persons who are not really destitute would be unwilling to remain" in any workhouse that was "properly regulated," this legal power ought not to be exercised,[281] except, as above explained, in the case of dependents where the head of the family insisted on taking his own discharge; or except for the purpose of immediately prosecuting the pauper under the Vagrant Acts.[282]
(x.) The Workhouse of the General Consolidated Order of 1847
We will now attempt to summarise the policy of the Central Authority as it stood in 1847 with respect to indoor relief. The workhouse for each union was to be one centrally situated, plain building; designed to house all sorts and conditions of paupers, under one head, and according to a single code of rules. There was to be complete separation of the sexes, with the one nominal exception in favour of aged married couples who demanded it. But the regulations made association among inmates of the same sex practically unrestricted. For although the elaborate classificatory scheme of 1836 depending on the respective ages was duly incorporated in the General Consolidated Order of 1847, this was hindered from ensuring any effective segregation by exceptions and inconsistent provisions; and was, in fact, rendered practically nugatory by requiring all inmates capable of service to perform the household work of all the wards and to supervise or serve all the other inmates of the same sex. On the other hand, all the workhouse inmates were to be, as far as possible, restricted from intercourse with the outside world, and thus confined to the atmosphere of pauperism. The policy with regard to treatment was to insist on cleanliness and order; to provide food, clothing, and sleep ample for health (even, to modern ideas, excessive); and to balance this by rigorous discipline, complete subjection to the master, and suppression of all individual impulse. Above all, the paupers were to be kept constantly occupied in toil, persistent and monotonous, with every element of encouragement, stimulus, responsibility, initiative and skill deliberately eliminated. Everything in the nature of recreation, mental exercise or training was (except for a minimum of teaching to the young children) avowedly excluded. The only forces appealed to were the fear of punishment and a modicum of religious exhortation. It was a fundamental principle that the régime of the workhouse should apply uniformly to all the pauper inmates whatever their past character, or present conduct, with the indispensable minimum of deviation for senility, infancy, and actual infirmity from sickness or otherwise. Even the sick are almost entirely ignored in the Orders of the Central Authority, and there is the very minimum of recognition of any hospital provision. The policy of the Central Authority at this date, in short, deliberately excluded any use of the workhouse for the curative, reformatory, or educational treatment of any class whatsoever. There was only to be one institution in each Union for all classes of paupers. It was to be a place which, whilst it provided the full requirements of physical health, starved both the will and the intelligence, and forced the pauper into a condition of blank-mindedness. By this means it was intended that no destitute person still capable of exerting or of enjoying himself, with the merest shred of mental faculty or mental desire, would consent to remain in the workhouse a day longer than he could help. Hence it was a part of the policy to avoid all obligatory detention, and to persist in regarding the workhouse as a place of merely temporary sojourn, in which no inmate, of whatever age, sex or condition, need be permanently domiciled.
K.—The Position in 1847 Compared With The Principles of 1834
The proposals and recommendations of the Report of 1834 fall under five heads, though opinions may differ as to the relative weight intended to be given to each. These five heads are:—
(i.) That there should be national uniformity in the treatment of each class of paupers, so that every applicant of any class might receive identical treatment wherever he happened to reside.
(ii.) That outdoor relief to the able-bodied and their families should be abolished—it being left ambiguous whether or not this applied to any woman not legally dependent on an able-bodied man.
(iii.) That each local authority should have a workhouse in which able-bodied applicants for relief should be received and set to work under strict discipline, in order to test their destitution.
(iv.) That the condition of the able-bodied pauper should be less eligible than that of the lowest class of independent labourer.
(v.) That, in so far as the aged and infirm or the children were given indoor maintenance, this should be in separate institutions, under distinct management, in which the old might "enjoy their indulgences" and the children be educated by "a person properly qualified to act as a schoolmaster."
Dealing separately with each of these, we see, with regard to national uniformity, that the Poor Law Commissioners had failed to embody this in their Orders even with regard to able-bodied men; and had, by 1847, wholly abandoned it in regard to other classes. In over 100 places the Poor Law Commissioners had practically failed to introduce their new principles at all. The rest of the country was divided for some purposes into two, and for others into three geographical areas of uneven size. In 396 unions outdoor relief to the able-bodied and their families was prohibited. In thirty-two unions under one set of regulations, and in eighty-one and twenty-nine unions under others, it was permitted on conditions. But it was with regard to the relief of women and children dependent on able-bodied persons that the two geographical areas differed most markedly. In the 396 unions, these dependents of able-bodied persons could not be relieved otherwise than in the workhouse. In the thirty-two, and also in the eighty-one and twenty-nine unions, they could be relieved in their homes. A similar geographical difference prevailed with regard to the relief to be given to the independent woman. For all the other classes of paupers, whether these were the specific exceptions to the classes above mentioned, or the much more numerous "aged and infirm," "sick," or orphan or deserted children, no uniform method of relief was prescribed or even suggested. Each of the local authorities was left to devise its own policy.
Passing now to the second head, the abolition of outdoor relief to able-bodied persons and their families, we note that the Poor Law Commissioners had, by 1847, in regard to 142 unions (comprising over one-fifth of the whole number), practically abandoned the hope of prohibition. In its stead, the Commissioners had sanctioned the opening of stone-yards, etc., for the employment of men receiving outdoor relief.