Victorian Workhouses Comprehension Pack PDF

STAGE 3 Unit focus: Victorians Text focus: Information Text Workhouses Many people in Victorian Britain were very poor. Around 35% of all of the people in London lived in abj...

STAGE 3 Unit focus: Victorians Text focus: Information Text Workhouses Many people in Victorian Britain were very poor. Around 35% of all of the people in London lived in abject poverty. Most of them didn’t have enough food each day to keep themselves going. Nearly all of this poverty was because of the conditions set up by the richest people in society. Factory owners paid as little as possible to workers and got rid of them for new ones if they ever complained. Working conditions were often shocking by today’s standards. There was nothing that workers could do about it. Unfortunately, rich people didn’t see this as being the problem. Instead, they believed that poor people just weren’t working hard enough. They passed a law in 1834 called the New Poor Law. This made life for poor people even more terrifying. Workhouses had existed since the 1380s. They were buildings where workers were given jobs in exchange for a small wage and food. They were not nice places to work. The jobs were the hardest, smelliest and most painful out there - the kind of jobs that nobody else wanted to do. Some of these included unpicking rope and smashing rocks. The New Poor Laws meant that anybody who was too poor was sent to the workhouse against their will. They were fed basic food and given clothes. Children were given a basic education. In exchange, they had to work long hours at jobs that destroyed their bodies. Families were separated and often never saw each other again. The threat of the workhouse was a terrifying one for every poor family. Many families that were sent there never escaped. They were nicknamed “prisons for the poor”. This view wasn’t shared by many wealthy people. They often produced posters telling people how desperate poorer families were to actually get into the workhouses. When people retire today, they get a pension from the government. This gives them a little bit of money to help them survive. There were no pensions in the Victorian period. Old people were expected to work until they physically couldn’t. If they weren’t working, they A ding ro Rea und all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed e um C u r r ic ul Th http://www.literacyshedplus.com also feared going to the workhouse. The people who ran the workhouses didn’t care about the people who worked in them. There were thousands of poor people living on the streets or in poverty. If a worker died, they were easily replaced. All of this was intentional. The government believed that if people were terrified of the workhouses, they would go out and find a job to improve their situation. The problem was there weren’t enough jobs out there, and they didn’t pay enough money. Most of the people who ended up in the workhouses were desperate to work and earn money. They didn’t have the choice. Workers in the workhouses were forced to wear uniforms. This meant that everybody who saw them knew that they were the poorest people in society. It was humiliating. Children were often hired out to factories or to mines to do horrible and dangerous jobs. Workhouses weren’t banned and closed down until 1948. That means that they were still being used during the Second World War. INFERENCE FOCUS 1. Why did most Victorian workers keep quiet about their working conditions? 2. What evidence is there that rich people didn’t have much empathy for the poor? 3. Why were workhouses horrible places for families? 4. Why were they never going to work properly? VIPERS QUESTIONS R When did workhouses close for good? S How were workhouse workers shamed in public? S How did getting old put you at risk? R Which law forced more people into the workhouses? P Do you think workhouses were a good or fair idea for getting people into a job? Explain your answer. all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com