Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article is the first to use a combination of three different types of inventories from Dorset to examine the material lives of paupers inside and outside Beaminster workhouse. It argues that life was materially better for paupers on outdoor relief, compared with workhouse inmates and with paupers in the moments before they entered the workhouse. The article also examines how the poor used admission into the workhouse as part of their economy of makeshifts. The evidence demonstrates that the able-bodied poor used the workhouse as a short-term survival strategy, whereas more vulnerable inmates struggled to use this tactic. This article therefore furthers our understanding of the nature of poor relief and adds further weight to recent historical work that has emphasised pauper agency.
Highlights
By the 1830s public opinion had turned against the way in which workhouses were managed.[1]
The evidence demonstrates that the able-bodied poor used the workhouse as a short-term survival strategy, whereas more vulnerable inmates struggled to use this tactic
This article furthers our understanding of the nature of poor relief and adds further weight to recent historical work that has emphasised pauper agency
Summary
By the 1830s public opinion had turned against the way in which workhouses were managed.[1]. These inventories were either made to catalogue the goods that a pauper had been allowed by the parish to keep in temporary storage whilst they were dwelling in the workhouse (storage inventories), or were used to record which goods the parish had taken and kept in exchange for indoor relief (inventories of goods taken from inmates) Both of these types of inventories have rarely been used by historians as it MATERIAL LIVES OF THE POOR AND THEIR USE OF THE WORKHOUSE is often difficult to find a large enough sample, despite the fact that it is not uncommon for parish sources to mention that it was their policy to seize or store inmates’ possessions.[9] Both Francis Hill and Susannah Ottaway were able to find several inventories of inmates from Lincolnshire and Essex, respectively, but they were able to demonstrate that people’s material circumstances were bleak at the moment that they entered the workhouse, both their analyses were very brief and only described the items found in the inventories. Single or widowed parishioners tried to use the workhouse as a short-term measure, but found it more difficult to re-establish their independence outside the workhouse
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