Coffins ordered in bulk at workhouse

9:47am Thursday 21st February 2008

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HISTORIAN Steve Chapples, of Burnley, tells the story of the workhouse - institutions which became prisons for those whose only crime was infirmity, or poverty.

"Most people's ideas of workhouses come from reading, or seeing, Charles Dickens's graphic account in Oliver Twist, but the truth about this barbaric place is even worse than one can imagine.

The Burnley Union Workhouse was built on Briercliffe Road in 1870 at a cost of £20,000. It could house 500 inmates.

The west wing was for males, and the east for females.

In 1895 a pavilion was added to the north wing for people with infectious diseases and in 1948, with the arrival of the NHS, the building was renamed Primrose Bank Hospital, later Burnley General.

All inmates had their own clothing confiscated and were given a uniform, which for women often consisted of a blue and white striped pinafore dress with shawl and clogs.

Pregnant, unmarried girls had to wear a yellow dress almost like a badge of shame.

Furniture was basic - simple uncarved tables, stools, and straight, armless chairs with no upholstery.

There were seven categories of inmate, kept in separate sections. Even married couples and parents with children were kept apart. The various areas of the building were sectioned off with heavy iron gates.

They were quite self-sufficient institutions, where the inmates grew their own vegetables in gardens, and sometimes fruit in orchards.

There was sometimes a tailor and shoemaker's shop, a bakery, a piggery, a laundry, a schoolroom, a chapel, and an infirmary and mortuary, where coffins were ordered in bulk.

The day started at 5am and the inmates worked ten-hour days breaking rocks for the building of roads, chopping wood, or grinding corn. The wheel for grinding the corn had to be turned 8,800 times a day to produce four bushels of flour. They would all be in bed by 8pm.

Friday was bath night and the inmates would be scrubbed unceremoniously by the matron, or her assistant, with a brush used to clean the floors!

They would then be given a tablespoon of brimstone and treacle.

They slept in dormitories barracks-style on bare boards with flock mattresses beneath rugs, with as many as 32 men in a 20-foot room. Pillows were not provided.

The workhouse masters were often ex-Army NCOs with sadistic tendencies and little education.

Men or boys were beaten, and women could have their rations halved, or cancelled, for insubordination.

Intoxicating liquor was banned. Smoking was only allowed in the main hall. Playing cards and dice were also banned to discourage gambling on games of chance."