Plymouth, Workhouses

PLYMOUTH
DATA

The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History

WORKHOUSES

Devonport Workhouse

Devonport's first workhouse had been in Duke Street and was opened in 1777. It was reported in 1850 that there had been as many as 470 paupers in the old workhouse. Although it had been enlarged many times it had become too small and inconvenient and was to be replaced by a larger and more commodious one. In 1858 a Doctor Rowe impeached the manor authorities for allowing the abandoned workhouse in Duke Street to be colonised by 227 persons. It was not demolished, however, until circa 1875-1899.

The expenditure on the poor of Stoke Damerel parish was £9,841 in 1848.

A new workhouse was erected on the west side of Wolseley Road between 1852 and 1854 by Mr Stidson (Stitson ?)of Plymouth at a cost of £9,595 exclusive of fittings. Mr Alfred Norman was the superintending architect. Although £10,000 had been allowed for the building of the workhouse, the tenders received ranged from £19,389 19s 4½d to £22,159 16s 8d! The site, which were fields 403 and 404 of the Manor of Stoke Damerel map, covered 4 acres and housed 600 inmates. The workhouse was first occupied in October 1854 and was to have room for 500 paupers and 35 inmates in the attached lunatic asylum. In January 1855 it was reported that although £10,000 had been spent on the workhouse, it had useless lavatories and no separation of the sexes in the building.

Part of the main buildings of Devonport Workhouse.

Part of the main buildings of Devonport Workhouse,
which was demolished during 2006.

The main block was three storeys high and faced south-east. At the rear was an infirmary that was originally two storeys high but had a further storey added later. This may have been in 1898 when £4,000 was recorded as having been spent on building additions.

It later became known as the Ford House Public Assistance Institution. The main buildings have been demolished during 2006.

East Stonehouse Parish Workhouse

The parish workhouse for East Stonehouse was was erected in Clarence Place in 1801, when the old one was pulled down. It could take 130 paupers. On January 3rd 1837 the parish formed a Poor Law Union and registration district under the Poor Law Act and in 1838 expended £3,005 14d in maintaining its in and out-door poor. Mr H B Snell had been asked to design a new Infirmary in 1878. In 1878 the clerk of the workhouse was Mr Richard Robinson; the superintendent registrar was Mr Fortescue Arnett Graham; the relieving officer and registrar of births and deaths was Mr George Carter Bignell; the registrar of marriages was Mr John B Turpin; the deputy registrar was Mr Robert Kingcombe; the master and matron of the workhouse were Mr George and Mrs Mary Ann Horswill.

A Board room and offices fronted Clarence Place, with a wash-house to the west and a dispensary and vagrant's ward to the east. There was an internal yard surrounded by the women's' quarters to the west, the kitchens and Master's quarters to the south, and a school and infirmary to the east. On the far south of the site was a stone-breaking yard.

During 1908 a fire-proof was constructed and plans were made for an adjoining dwelling-house to be converted into a children's home. When added to the cost of erecting anew laundry, the Guardians estimated that the whole works would cost around £1,300. That year the Stonehouse Workhouse had the highest number of inmates on record.

By 1939 the building had become the Clarence House Hostel, which was damaged during the Second World War and demolished.

Hospital of the Poor's Portion

This was Plymouth's first true workhouse and was built close by the Orphan's Aid in Catherine Street, Plymouth. The deed of foundation was dated May 4th 1630. It was, like the Orphan's Aid, controlled by the Corporation and the coat of arms appeared over the doorway, along with the pious motto 'By God's helpe throvghe Christ'. It received a wide selection of gifts and endowments, details of which are given in Worth's "History of Plymouth". The property was let to them on a 99-year lease, determinable on lives, and subject to a fine on every anniversary of renewal.

The Hospital, along with all the almshouses, ceased to be a private charity in 1708, when an Act of Parliament transferred them to a Corporation of the Guardians of the Poor. One of the curiosities of the Act was that the names of all the benefactors should appear in 'capital golden letters' for ever in the chief room. There was room for 400 paupers, the able-bodied of which were employed on teasing oakum or making mats.

Elections were held each year on the second Tuesday in May for the posts as Guardians, with the Mayor, the Recorder, six magistrates and six common councillors, serving alongside 20 inhabitants from the parish of St Andrew's and 18 from the parish of Charles. By this means they were able to maintain their poor inhabitants without the interference of the Poor Law Commissioners.

The cost of maintaining the poor of the two parishes was put at £11,580 in 1838, £16,529 in 1848 and £15,014 in 1849.

The 1851 census shows that Mr Robert Burnard was the Master of the establishment, with his wife, Elizabeth, as the Matron. There were also two teachers, Mr J P Williams and Miss Mary Harris.

Plymouth Old Workhouse

Plymouth's first workhouse was known as the 'Hospital of the Poor's Portion', which dated from around 1630. In 1708 the parishes of Plymouth St Andrew's and Plymouth Charles united to open a residential workhouse, which was situated in Catherine Street, adjacent to St Andrew's Church.

The Hospital of the Poor's Portion, the early workhouse, in Plymouth

The Hospital of the Poor's Portion was Plymouth's
first workhouse. This view was taken from the rear
of St Andrew's Church.

In the summer of 1849 there was a major outbreak of cholera in the town. The existing workhouse could not cope with the sudden demand placed upon it, having only one bath and very little hot water, not to mention poor ventilation. Added to that was the scandal surrounding the undignified way in which the body of a Mrs Henrietta Beer was treated by the workhouse.

Mrs Beer was living at the time in a squalid little back room at 13 Flora Lane, Plymouth. Her husband, a marine, had been drowned five years before and since then she and her two young children had subsisted on the pittance she earned as a baby-minder. Since September 1848 she had been too ill to earn a living at all and she had been living on the charity of her neighbours and doles from the Plymouth Workhouse. However, the food and the money had to be fetched from the Workhouse and due to her poor health she only collected a single shilling and an occasional loaf of bread in the two months of October and November. Huddled beneath one blanket, on a miserable bundle of straw, Mrs Beer died on February 15th 1849. Apparently, during her last three days she had received no food at all.

At the inquest, it was revealed that she had in fact died from a clot of blood on the brain due to apoplexy and not from starvation, as had been expected. There was no trace of food in her body. This simple fact saved the Workhouse Master, Mr William Truman Harris, from a charge of manslaughter.

He, however, was unrepentant and even threatened to sue the "Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse Herald" for libel although even his closest friends were describing his management of the Workhouse as 'a little cheeseparing'.

In April 1849 the Board of Guardians declared a surplus of £2,000. At the annual elections to the Board, William Harris was re-elected both as a member and as Governor of the Workhouse. One of his first actions was to cancel a proposal to build a new workhouse on a four-acre field that the Board already owned at Greenbank.

So the Hospital of the Poor's Portion continued in use, despite being overcrowded with 410 inhabitants, men, women, children and lunatics, and rampant disease. There was only one bath but in any case there was little hot water. When clothes were washed they had to be hung out to dry in the wards. The men's ward was over a mortuary. Every bed was shared. But Mr Harris's adamant attitude was about to be changed -- by a visitation of cholera.

This had first reached the Town in February 1849 and by the summer was widespread. Those people with money fled the Town but one notable exception was none other than our Mr William Truman Harris. He toiled amongst the sick and dying without regard for his own life or well-being. By the October, the disease had run its course and had killed some 1800 people. The experience brought Mr Harris to his senses and he realised, so it was said, that his duty to human life went beyond his duty to the payers of the poor rate.

In April 1850 the Board of Guardians declared a deficit of £2,000, a complete change from just twelve months before. But Mr Harris departed on a tour of inspection of the most up-to-date workhouses in the country and returned to Plymouth in the July to propose the erection of the much-postponed workhouse at Greenbank.

Plymouth New Workhouse

The four-acre Speccott's Field, near the almost new Borough Prison, had been purchased for this and at 11am on Tuesday March 16th 1852 the foundation stone was laid by none other than Mr William Truman Harris, the Governor of the Corporation Guardians. A procession was formed at the old Workhouse and wended its way through Old Town Street, Tavistock Road, Park Crescent to Speccott's Field.

It transpired that the Governor had previously objected to the erection of a new workhouse because the Guardians were much in debt and he felt that the existing workhouse in Catherine Street could be extended. However, after visiting many such establishments in both England and Ireland, he had withdrawn his objections.

Before laying the foundation stone, the Governor placed in a cavity in the stone a bottle which contained written on parchment, the names of the Guardians at that time, and the current coins of the realm, from the half-crown down to the fourpenny-piece. After Messrs Arthur and Dwelly had guided the stone into place, Mr Harris hit it several times with a mallett and then examined it by means of a plummet and square before declaring it well and truly laid.

The Mayor then spoke about the Guardians and the poor in general, which drew only a 'murmur of applause'.

Afterwards 60 to 70 guests sat down to dinner at Radmore's Globe Hotel in the centre of Plymouth. In celebration of the event, the bells of St Andrew's rang continuously from early dawn until dusk.

Formal opening was on Tuesday January 3rd 1854 but 380 inmates had already been moved there from the old Workhouse. The cost of erection and fitting out was said by the Plymouth Times to be about £10,300 although another source reported it to be £12,500. Also present at the opening were Mr W T Harris, the Governor of the Board of Guardians; the Reverends J Hatchard, H A Greaves, and W Hocker, the latter being the Chaplain of the adjacent Gaol; Doctor Stevens; and Messrs J Barnell, Channing, Ryall, Toms, E Brown, Randall, Ash, Easton, Marshall, and White.

The workhouse was built by Mr Robert Stitson, who had recently built the Devonport Workhouse, and the architects were Messrs Oswald C Arthur and W Dwelley & Son.

At the front of the site were the offices and Board room, some 250 feet in length. Behind that was the main three-storey block providing accommodation for 700 inmates. Attached to this was a spacious dining room and chapel, 60 feet by 30 feet, fitted with tables and benches, and with a pulpit at one end for the celebration of Divine worship on Sundays. At the back of the dining hall was the kitchen, which had been fitted out with the most efficient cooking apparatus of the day by Mr P J Marshall, of Treville Street, Plymouth. There were two monster ovens capable of roasting an unlimited amount of meat, and six large copper boilers for steaming vegetables. The cooking was performed by steam generated by a large boiler capable of holding 200 gallons of water.

Other principal buildings on the site were the hospital, which included lunatic and fever wards, and accommodation for a number of aged, married couples. There were extensive gardens attached, which one year produced 20,000 leeks and 11,000 cabbages.

At 1pm on the previous day, Monday January 2nd, those of the inmates who were not confined to their dormitories, numbering about 320, were treated to a special dinner consisting of roast and boiled beef and mutton, followed by plum pudding and ale. The Guardians and visitors acted as carvers. The puddings were supplied by Mr W H Rowe, baker, of Treville Street and were said to weigh upwards of 400 lbs.

About forty Guardians and guests sat down to a dinner at the Globe Hotel on the Tuesday afternoon, at which the Governor, Mr W T Harris, presided, with Mr Swinburne as the vice-president. After the usual loyal toasts, the event went on into the evening.

It is thought that the Board of Guardians' offices were in the building at the junction of Longfield Place and Greenbank Road, called Greenbank House.

Disposal of Plymouth Old Workhouse

On December 16th 1854 Messrs Eastlake, solicitors, of 15 Frankfort Lane, Plymouth, announced that the Plymouth Old Workhouse would be sold in one lot by tender, the closing date for the receipt of which was Saturday February 3rd 1855.

The description of the premises gives a good indication of the extent of the Workhouse. It fronted upon Catherine Street some 114 feet and on Westwell Street by approximately 99 feet. The whole was reckoned to be some 41,533 square feet. The buildings comprised: Board Room, Offices and Garden; Clerk's Residence and Garden; Girl's School; Men's Wards; a Yard; Kitchen and Store Rooms; Girl's Yard; Carpenter's Shop and Bath Rooms; Boy's School; Stores, etc.; Women's Wards; Hospital Buildings; more Yards; Lunatic Wards; Airing Yard; Boy's Apartments; Stables; Shed and Wash-house. The sale notice praised the site's location as being close to the Guildhall, Post Office, Banks, Custom House, Exchange, South Devon Railway terminus, Millbay Pier and Sutton Pool and said it 'presented an excellent opportunity for the erection of Private Dwellings or Public Buildings.'

Development of Plymouth New Workhouse

Other facilities were added over the years. These included an isolation/smallpox hospital, a venereal diseases ward and a maternity block. During major development work between 1907 and 1910 two large ward blocks, an administration centre and a nurses' home for 21 nurses were added.

On January 12th 1909 it was reopened as the Greenbank Infirmary by Mrs J S Argall, wife of the Governor.

Under the Local Government Act 1929 (20 & 21 George V ch 17) the Boards of Guardians were abolished and their functions were transferred to the county borough councils the following year.

The Plymouth Workhouse was converted into the City Hospital under the instigation of Labour councillor Mr Herbert M Medland. This later became Freedom Fields Hospital.

Plymouth Royal Mendicity Society

Workhouses were not the only bodies that helped or maintained the poor. The Plymouth Royal Mendicity Society was established in 1870 for the relief of the deserving poor. In 1878 the honorary secretary was Mr Hamilton Whiteford.

Scattered Homes

At the beginning of the twentieth century some pauper children were accommodated in large, often isolated homes on the edges of towns. At Plymouth there were ones at Lower Compton, Wimborne Terrace and Gifford Terrace, Mutley. The children were unable to attend school at Mount Street, Plymouth, because the school was overcrowded so they went to Compton National School, which was outside the Borough. The School tried to extract a donation of two guineas from Plymouth Corporation or the Plymouth School Board but despite the support of the Scattered Homes Committee of the Council, the proposal was defeated in a vote.

Plympton St Mary Union Workhouse

Plympton St Mary had a parish workhouse as early as 1777. Indeed, the land on which it stood had been granted for the purpose in 1736 so it may be even older. It consisted of only eight rooms but was allegedly intended to accommodate up to 100 inmates. It was this building that was used a hospital during the terrible cholera outbreak of 1832.

The Plympton St Mary Union was formed on October 10th 1836, following the passing of the Poor Law Act of that year.

At a meeting of the Plympton Board of Guardians on October 21st 1836, it was recommended that one central workhouse be established in or near Ridgeway. Another meeting was held on January 13th 1837, at which it was decided to lodge all the male inmates at Plymstock Workhouse and the females and children at Ridgeway.

On April 14th 1837 it was ordered that all the inmates of the Poor Houses in Newton, Wembury, Yealmpton, Ermington, and Holbeton should attend at the Union Workhouses -- the men at Plymstock and the women at the old workhouse, Elm Terrace, Ridgeway. However, where the men and women were married they should both attend the Plympton Workhouse.

The average cost of provisions in the workhouses was 2s 2d per head per week but it was possible to have what they called "out-relief", which for a single person amounted to two shillings and a loaf of bread weekly and for a man and wife, 3s 6d and a loaf weekly. It is of no surprise to learn that many of the inmates, presumably those in parishes far from Plympton or Plymstock, refused to quit their poor houses and were brought before the magistrates. Fortunately the magistrates ruled that they had no jurisdiction to enforce the order and the Board of Guardians was forced to seek advice from the Poor Law Commissioners. As a result, the churchwardens and overseers of the poor in the very parishes were ordered to give their tenants one months notice to quit. Some of the inmates moved to the Workhouses while others found alternative accommodation within their parishes.

On April 20th 1838 it was resolved that a new workhouse should be erected, capable of housing 200 inmates. The first problem was to find a suitable site. At a Guardians' meeting on May 4th 1838 a site at "Terridge Meadow" and "Terridge Field" at Ridgeway was recommended. This idea fell through and other sites were inspected. Finally, at the meeting on Friday March 3rd 1839 a resolution was passed that "Butt Side Park", the property of Lord Morley, and an orchard, the property of Miss Catherine Treeby, at Underwood, be purchased as the site for the new Workhouse. This does not quite agree with a later claim that it was built on the site of a former lazar house, unless that had been demolished a long time previous.

Although the local press attributed the design for the new building to a Mr M Develley, it is probable that this was a misprint, or misunderstanding, for Mr Dwelley, of Plymouth, who designed the Plymouth Workhouse. On July 12th 1839 the Board accepted the tender of Mr William Bartlett junior, of Devonport, in the sum of £3,621, for the construction. The Clerk of Works was Mr William Pearse.

The Board under the chairmanship of Viscount Boringdon gave the go-ahead on August 9th 1839. In the end the total cost of the project was £5,169 2s 4d, of which the cost of the land and conveyancing was £643 9s, and £163 18s 8d was spent on constructing a reservoir, the work being carried out by Messrs Rowe and Hardie. A boundary wall cost a further £84 10s.

The Plympton Union Workhouse was first occupied on Monday March 22nd 1841, when the inmates of the two buildings in Plympton and Plymstock were transferred.

It was managed by a Board of 35 Guardians representing the parishes in the Union. Within the present area of Plymouth this meant the parishes of Compton Gifford, Eggbuckland, Plymstock, Plympton Erle, Plympton St Mary, St Budeaux, Tamerton Foliot, and Pennycross. In later years even the Extra-Parochial districts of Chelson Meadow and Laira Green elected Guardians. Among the Board members were Mr William Revell, representing Compton Gifford; Mr Edward Rabbidge, senior, and Mr John Bartlett, junior, representing Eggbuckland; Mr Joseph Pearse, senior, Mr Christopher Spear and Mr Richard Willing, for Plympton St Mary; Mr Thomas Brown and Mr Joseph Pearse, junior, for Plympton St Maurice; Mr John Somerford Edwards, Mr John Hart, Mr William Lugg, and Mr Robert Rowe, for Plymstock; Mr George Stead, for Pennycross; Mr John Fortescue, for St Budeaux; and Mr Henry Bradridge and Mr Luke Morris Hall, representing Tamerton Foliot.

At a Parish Vestry meeting on December 9th 1841 it was decided that the former parish poor house should be sold. On May 12th 1842 the offer from Mr Richard Langworthy of £115 was accepted and the building was transferred to him. It was reconstructed and renamed "Castle Cot". This property is shown on the 1860s Ordnance Survey map as being on the western side of what is now known as George Lane, between Barbican Road and Ridgeway.

Mr John and Mrs Mary Dawe were Master and Matron of the Plympton Union Workhouse at the time of the 1851 census.

In 1869 a new block was added for the male sick. An isolation hospital was also erected but this turned out to be a "white elephant" and it was subsequently merged into the new infirmary.

A new Board Room and a Porter's Lodge were provided in the 1890s, which required the demolition of the Receiving Wards. This cost around £1,200.

During the time that Mr Preston Thomas was the General Inspector of the District the old casual wards were condemned and plans were drawn up by a Major Clark for the new buildings, the construction of which was commenced by Messrs Allen and Tozer of St Budeaux in the summer of 1901. The new wards were opened in 1902 at a cost of some £1,935.

By 1906 it had apparently become clear that the old sick wards, with just one nurse, were totally inadequate. Major Clark drew up plans for a new infirmary, which also involved alterations to the isolation hospital, and these were in due course approved. At a meeting on June 21st 1907 it was decided to award the tender for the construction to Messrs Stevenson and Company, of Plymouth. It was expected to cost £2,427.

On September 30th 1908 a new 40-bed infirmary was opened by the chairman of the Board of Guardians, Mr W J Crossing, after which it became known as the Plympton St Mary Poor Law Institution. The staff of the infirmary was doubled and eventually increased again so that by 1930 there was a head nurse plus three assistants. One nurse was always on night duty. A new washhouse was provided in 1910.

In 1910 the Local Government Board decreed that all children, except infants and infirmary cases, should be removed from workhouses. Two houses at Crownhill were at first rented and later purchased and the children were moved there on January 25th 1912.

From April 1st 1930, the date the Local Government Act 1929 came into force and the Board of Guardians was disbanded, it ceased to admit the poor, elderly or infirm guests that it had taken as a workhouse and it was renamed the Plympton Public Assistance Institution. This is where unmarried mothers, vagrants and the mentally ill usually ended up.

In 1939 the master of the workhouse was Mr Owen Johns. It is interesting to note that it is said that on September 1st 1939, when the news came that the German forces had invaded Poland, that the Hospital received a telegram instructing them to clear the premises of all patients in readiness to become a front-line hospital. The patients were despatched by a fleet of special buses to Okehampton and Britain declared war against Germany two days later.

When the National Health Service commenced on July 5th 1948 it became known as the Underwood House Hospital, which was simplified 10 years later to Plympton Hospital.

The old Plympton St Mary Union Workhouse building was demolished in 1974. Plympton Hospital now stands on the site.

Plymstock Workhouse

A parish poor house existed at Plymstock in 1777. This was replaced in 1823 with a new one in what is now Stentaway Road, leading from Billacombe Villas to Plymstock Parish Church. This did not last very long, however, as it was apparently in circa 1838 and converted in to five houses.