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Most towns in Wales had an old workhouse. Today, many are hospitals and some have been turned into hotels or transformed for modern uses. Even small towns such as Conwy had a workhouse, which is now the Conwy Hospital and is earmarked for closure and demolition by 2003. If you have seen the film musical Oliver or read Dickens' novel Oliver Twist or Joan Aitken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase you will have an image of the grim world of the Victorian poor. Top of the list of grim places was the workhouse. People worked here in return for board and lodging. In 1834, parliament passed an act called the Poor Law Amendment Act, which ordered all 15,000 parishes in England and Wales to form Poor Law Unions, each with its own workhouse. Hundreds of new workhouse buildings were built. They were designed to provide separate accommodation for the different types of paupers: male/female, fit/ill and children/adults. (A pauper was the Victorian term for a poor person.) The Victorians did not want paupers to come to the workhouses unless they were desperate, so they were not very inviting places. People who wanted a place in the workhouse had to pass a test to show that they couldn't work to support themselves. As a result, the majority of those forced into the workhouse were not the work-shy, but the old, the infirm, the orphaned, unmarried mothers and the physically or mentally ill. Conway Poor Law Union was formed on April 11, 1837. It served 15 parishes from three counties around Conwy. (In those days it was spelt Conwy, not Conway.) In a typical year, Conway workhouse saw about 1,800 people pass through its doors. Download lesson pack |
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