Southwell Workhouse

Not the place to go to for a jolly outing, but worth a visit just the same. Despite its neat and tidy appearance, it evokes many sad and sombre associations. This is a bit of social history that touches our own family histories more than we perhaps realise.

It is sobering to be reminded just how recent some of this history is. Southwell Workhouse still has some of the furniture used by its last residents in the 1980s. In teaching us about the condition of the poor in the nineteenth century, it also serves as a reminder that the seemingly insoluble problems of long-term poverty are still with us today.
The Workhouse is maintained by the National Trust (www.nationaltrust.org.uk/workhouse)

Those of us (and it must be most of us) whose family origins are in the rural working classes may have a family history that was touched by the workhouse. Looking through old photographs the other day, I came across this photograph of my Great Granny, who lived out her last years with her daughter (my Mother's Mother) as the only alternative to the shame of going into the workhouse. Granny and Grandad looked after her in spite of being very poor themselves.
Although Granny and Grandad had migrated into Grantham for work, Great Granny previously lived in the countryside, at Hanby/Pickworth, where Great Grandad had been a shepherd.

Although Great Granny remained illiterate throughout her life, Granny was educated at Ingoldsby Board School. She is somewhere in this photograph, taken when she was 13 years old.
Somewhere also in this photograph are some of her brothers and sisters. (Great Granny had 12 children: 2 died in infancy leaving 5 girls and 5 boys to grow to adulthood.) At least two of the brothers, and probably some of the other children in this picture, ended their days in Grantham Workhouse.

Before I end this post, there is another more recent photograph I came across. I remember this old gentleman very well. He was a friend of the family and used to visit us in the 1950s. I was still a child and we lived just off Dysart Road, quite near Grantham Workhouse. Mr Matthews had been a farm worker in his youth, but had been removed to the Workhouse with his wife. They had to live separately in male and female wings but were able to be together at designated times of the day.
This photograph, taken by the Grantham Journal, seems to have been taken for a special occasion, perhaps an anniversary. It's the details that are fascinating, such as the bare, painted-brick walls and the old girl peeping out of the bedclothes in the background.