In
Darkest London
(1926) describes the experiences of Ada Chesterton (journalist on the Sunday
Express) in Southwark 'casual ward' (workhouse):
On asking a policeman where she might find
the nearest casual ward, he informed her that there was only workhouse for
women in London, located in Great Guilford Street, Southwark.
Workhouse by night:
Admission: possessions, privacy and
cleanliness
On first calling at the (men only) workhouse near
Lambeth Walk, Ada spoke to the porter on her arrival, who gave her an order
of admittance to Southwark, and a red counter bearing the figure ONE, which
entitled her to a ticket on the tram. She asked the porter what would be
expected of her at the workhouse, who in trying to reassure her told her they'd
take away her money until the morning, and reminding her that she'd not be
admitted if she had above a shilling. The tram conductor was polite and kindly
to her when she gave him the token, although a woman next to her seemed to
shrink away at mention of the Casual Ward. Due to the height of the walls, Ada
found it difficult to detect the entrance in the dark.
The admission process included a number of
questions: name, place of birth, place of schooling, age, hair and eye colour,
and height. After being questioned by the porter, Ada was then sent upstairs to
be seen to by female attendants, who asked the same questions, and explained
the process. She was told that she was unable to keep her own nightdress - one
would be supplied ('a striped garment, fastening at the back, with long
enveloping sleeves') - or to take anything on to the ward (and that any private
paperwork would be 'sealed in a packet...We have no desire to pry...').
On entering the workhouse, clothes are
removed, and an attendant oversees the inmate's bath. In the case of Ada, she
said with surprise 'Why you're quite clean...It's such a relief...to find
someone who isn't dirty. By-the-bye, is your head all right ?", after
which she was inspected. Then 'You've no idea what some of them are like, you
know. We have women here who are fairly alive". Ada responded by
"They can't help it really, can they ?...It's difficult to find the money
for a wash, let alone a bath."
"But it's unfair to the
others, all the same...and the worst of it is some of them won't let you touch
their heads." Ada describes how heads are shaved and 'excavations [are]
conducted under the scalp - for lice burrow deep.' Ada notes the effects of
lice upon health. "Leave your clothes on the floor outside the
door...they'll be inspected, and, if necessary-baked".
'This was a polite way of
telling me that should my garments prove to be insectivorous they would be
dealt with. There is always a hot chamber working in the House. Sometimes the
clothes suffer as well as the insects, and the unfortunate casual gets back a
singed skirt, or an encindered petticoat.'
The 'cell'
Ada 'was given a mattress, a pillow, and a
pair of blankets, and told to take them into my " cell "' and muses
if the term was perhaps employed as 'it is so exact a replica of the
prison variety that even the official sense of humour would boggle at another
name' suggesting that 'cubicle might be tried ; it would not have so ominous a
suggestion.' She was then 'left in the darkness very much alone...in the
terrible isolation of my cell, my soul ached for the company of the women with
their unspeakable bundles...'
'High up in the wall was a
tiny, round window, like a port-hole, far beyond my power to reach. [more in
privacy section]...The mattress was not too hard, the blankets soft and warm, but
the pillow was as stiff as a log of wood. It is as though the Guardians feel
the casual must not have comfort everywhere.' (134) 'The " cell ",
slightly funnel-shape, is like a coffin, as it suddenly occurred to me. I felt
myself entombed in an instant, cut off for ever from the light of day.
Workhouse by day:
'We were aroused the next morning about
half-past five. The cell door was open. I found my clothes outside the door and
put them on in the dim light... When we were all dressed we folded up our
blankets and carried them to the end of the corridor from whence they were
dispatched to be fumigated. Outside each door the number is painted in bold
figures-a discovery which somehow made me feel more than ever like a convict.’
Food
Ada was informed by a regular resident of
regulations that ensured residents should be fed before being put to work.
'We were then shepherded into the day
room, a mournful place with bare boards, whitewashed walls and a long trestles
table. There was no fire in the grate. Large tin mugs full of what was supposed
to be tea [which Ada describes as 'loathsomely luke-warm...I could have cried
at this uncalled-for rebuff. I was prepared for weak or unsweetened, but not
cold tea.'] were placed on the table together with slices of bread spread with
a particularly distasteful brand of " marge. " ...I tried to munch a
piece of bread, but the marge was more than I could stomach...The hour for
leaving... is somewhere between about half -past seven.'
'I left before the midday meal, which
consists of potatoes, bread, and a little cheese. The evening meal is skilly.
The casuals have no tea, except in the morning.'
Work and punishment
Work was an obligation of the workhouse,
and ensured effective incarceration of residents. Ada was told "You can't
go until to-morrow morning...unless the superintendent gives you permission.
According to law, you've got to give a day's work for your lodging." Another
resident described the consequences of (apparent) refusal to work. This woman had
argued with the 'Master', who had both tried to put a fellow inmate to do his
personal washing (which was against the regulations), threatening her with gaol
if she refused to comply. She was ultimately given 14 days imprisonment for
non-compliance, as the Master didn't admit that it was his own washing that the
inmate (on advice from a regular resident) refused to do. This other resident
was subsequently asked by the Master to work on an empty stomach, which was
also against the regulations; she was then given a piece of cheese. Before she
left, she was given "a cup of cold gruel, though something hot in the way
of tea is the right of ev'ryone...He wouldn't give me any, so I took the gruel
an hides it in the garden...". She then asked to speak to a member of the
committee, who reprimanded the Master and gave the woman a sixpence. But she
told Ada that she could never return to that workhouse.
On instruction from the superintendent at
Southwark, Ada went to another inmate (who in the absence of tools, was
shovelling ashes from the grate with her hands), to find what work she should
undertake, and was told "There's nothing particular you can do...just look
busy, that's what matters." It was apparent when looking around that all
of the domestic jobs had been done, and she found she had to re-do these
jobs.
Oakum picking - which she
asserts 'of all tasks is most cruel. It tears the finger nails and soils the
soul ; it has no value, social or economic' (although acknowledging its use as
hospital swabs) - is seen by Ada as part of the system deliberately designed to
deter people from claiming a night's lodging to which, as members of a
community heavily rated, they are entitled.' She goes on to say 'The same
system compels the compulsory detention of any casual until the morning of the
second day. There could be no ethical objection to a woman doing two or three
hours' useful work. This, however, is not the object, which is to undermine all
feelings of self-respect, and implant in the mind the belief that poverty is a
crime which must be heavily punished. Not by any active or deliberate cruelty,
but by the imposition of futile yet degrading denials. This denial of liberty,
this abnegation of freedom, is so insistent that only in the last resource will
a London outcast go into the House.'
Incarceration
Describing feelings of claustrophobia Ada
notes 'I wanted to scream...I knew that of I tried the handle of the door it
would not open. No handle was there. I could not escape from my
funnel-shaped coffin...[unable to sleep, later] I crept out and went to the
door. And it was even as I had thought.
Some months ago there was a
case in the police court, where it was alleged an inmate was " locked
" in her cell. The superintendent stated upon oath that this was not so.
" There are...no keys. "
'I know better example of the letter of
the truth - and the violation of the spirit. There are no keys, but, as I have
said, when the casual is duly in bed, the handle of the door is withdrawn.
The official explanation of this device
would appear quite reasonable. It is said that if people could open their
cells, they would visit each other all night. One or two convivial spirits
might, perhaps, drift into the corridor, but for the most part the casual is so
dog-tired that any such spirit of enterprise is knocked out. But even were
every casual to emerge, an attendant on night duty could shoo them back with a
warning that if they came out again they would be shut in. It is as I have
said, the Guardians do not desire to extend hospitality too often. Therefore
they inflict slight penalties upon the body and the soul, which, in the
aggregate, make up a sum sufficiently imposing to make a night in the ward a
thing most strenuously to be avoided...'
Ada, on (untruthfully) telling the
superintendent that she has an offer of work awaiting her, and therefore asking
for release, is told (as this is her first time on a casual ward) that she may
go, although "...if you come back here within a month you will have to
stay [effectively imprisoned] for three days."
Fear of
institutional life
Ada notes
‘…the thing that survives longest and most fiercely among the destitute is a
passionate fear of restriction, the horror of detention within four walls,
under a strange roof. For this reason before they will ask for a night’s
lodging at the Poor Law Guardians they will push endurance to an inhuman
limit.’
After a night in Southwark Workhouse, she
relates 'I was beginning to wish to get out. The walls seemed to be closing in
on me. I got a little panic-stricken. Supposing this machine with which I had
placed myself in contact should held me against my will ? Suppose they said
that I must stay. Guardians have such plenary powers to use against the poor. I
saw myself sentenced to remain permanently in an institution, I remembered with
quick alarm the " tests " by which they measure your intelligence.
They might easily find me mentally deficient !
I went to the attendant and
asked if I could go. It was then that the jaws of the trap began to close. Ada
was 'beginning to have a wholesome fear of the State ; I did not want to be
thrust back into that awful cell. The thought of another night in that
funnel-shaped coffin appalled me.'
On leaving, Ada was accompanied by the
'feeling as if I had escaped from the grave. I reeled almost with the sense of
liberty...I understand then why it is that humanity dreads what is know as
organised relief. I contrasted the ghastly regulations of the Workhouse with
the warm, unfettered welcome of the Salvation Army, and I knew that if I found
myself again in such a plight rather than go to the casual ward I would spend
the whole night walking the streets.
And if I felt this in an
institution characterised by the humanity of the officials, how intolerable
must be the bitterness of a House ruled by in sentient force ?
There is, I understand, a
Union of Poor Law Officials, who, apart from their work of obtaining decent
wages and conditions for the members, are steadily striving to alter the
regulations governing casuals. In this they are helped by individual guardians.
But on the whole Boards have developed little consciousness since the days of
Bumble. They have no souls to save nor bodies to be kicked and, while in
London, at any rate, superintendents, male and female, have lost that sense of
brutal superiority condemned by Dickens, their superiors have remained
untouched. In the process of economic evolution, the soul of Bumble has
ascended to a higher social plane.'
Change
Ada states that 'Following on the publication in a Sunday
newspaper of my article dealing with the Casual Ward, a revision of the rules
has taken place. Oakum picking has been abolished for both male and female
casuals, and the latter are now permitted to spend two or three hours daily in
washing and mending their clothes and attending to their persons...[along] with
the provisions of hot tea at breakfast...I rejoice to think that on this
morning on which I write the women at Great Guilford Street have their tea hot
; a small thing-but to them a great feat to have accomplished.' She went on to
found the Cecil Homes.
More to come on Ada Chesterton's comments
on gendered access to workhouses and welfare...
For more
information on the history of the workhouse, see the excellent web site of
Peter Higginbotham: www.workhouses.org.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment