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The Workhouses: How the Poor Were Virtually Imprisoned in Victorian Era England
Workhouses in Britain were all-inclusive institutions, which offered both accommodations and a workplace to those unable to support themselves. However, living conditions were brutal.
As a transition to a new form of manufacturing, in which hand production was replaced by machines, the Industrial Revolution was a force to be reckoned with. It was more of a firestorm than a tornado. It started in the large cities of the United Kingdom, slowly moving through the farmlands and rural areas, displacing workers while exacerbating the gap between the rich and the poor.
Nothing could be done about it. Nobody can stop progress.
The Industrial Revolution
The initial wave, now known as the First Industrial Revolution, started around 1760. By 1840, when today’s academics agree it ended, society had drastically changed. As the migration to major cities from rural and farm areas reached unprecedented levels, London’s population tripled in the period between 1801 and 1861. Other cities like Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool also grew by three- or four-fold.
The Separation of the Classes
As people flooded to the cities in search of work at manufacturing, chemical, and iron smelting plants, the ranks of the poor increased. Britain’s prisons became overcrowded, prompting the transportation of some 170,000 convicts to penal colonies in Australia between 1788 and 1868. Thousands of other inmates were placed in prison ships (or prison hulks, as they were called at the time), as traditional jails were full to capacity. Some of these prison vessels would remain at sea near the coast of the British Isles or hoist on dry land.
While the Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain allowed it to become the world’s leading commercial nation, conditions at home did not reflect its economic success. By the early 1800s, poverty, social…
