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The Workhouse
May. 12th, 2018 06:29 pm It's not often that a TV show can make me cry, but I'm currently watching "Call the Midwife" on Netflicks and catching up on earlier seasons that I'd missed.
The last episode of the first season (and one earlier episode as well) focus on the older generation who spend time in the workhouse.
I've done some reading around this period and the programme does not exaggerate.
Families were separated. Husbands from wives, children from their mothers. Many children died from malnourishment.
The Victorian view was that the poor were responsible for their poverty - only by making workhouse conditions really bad could you stop the lazy wanting to enter them.
There was a lot of variation over time, some times and places were better than others, but saving money was always a strong motive. Many young children were sold as apprentices to mills in the north or as to chimney sweeps to climb chimneys. Many of those 'apprentices' would die young. Others were sent overseas as part of colonisation programmes to meet a range of fates (all the way from kind adoptive parents to effective slavery).
The last episode of the first season (and one earlier episode as well) focus on the older generation who spend time in the workhouse.
I've done some reading around this period and the programme does not exaggerate.
Families were separated. Husbands from wives, children from their mothers. Many children died from malnourishment.
The Victorian view was that the poor were responsible for their poverty - only by making workhouse conditions really bad could you stop the lazy wanting to enter them.
There was a lot of variation over time, some times and places were better than others, but saving money was always a strong motive. Many young children were sold as apprentices to mills in the north or as to chimney sweeps to climb chimneys. Many of those 'apprentices' would die young. Others were sent overseas as part of colonisation programmes to meet a range of fates (all the way from kind adoptive parents to effective slavery).
