Metropolitan workhouse infirmaries, &c. : Copy of the report of Dr. Edward Smith, Poor Law inspector and medical officer to the Poor Law Board, on the Metropolitan Workhouse infirmaries and sick wards / (Viscount Enfield).

  • Smith, Edward, 1818?-1874.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Metropolitan workhouse infirmaries, &c. : Copy of the report of Dr. Edward Smith, Poor Law inspector and medical officer to the Poor Law Board, on the Metropolitan Workhouse infirmaries and sick wards / (Viscount Enfield). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Part I Details of the Inspection. Classes of the Sick. On the day of our visit the total number of inmates was about 23,500, of w hom less than one-tenth were able-bodied. From a Parliamentary Return prepared by the Poor Law Board in May 1865 (House of Commons, No. 312), it appeared that there were in the metropolitan workhouses, on 28th January of that year, upwards of 1,400 afflicted with acute, and upwards of 6,000 with chronic, diseases.* Hence it appears that the workhouses are now homes for the aged and infirm, a last refuge for destitute sick persons, places where a great number of women Summary. give birth to illegitimate children, and a temporary shelter for tramps and very destitute persons suffering from some disease. They are not, on the one hand, workhouses in the sense of institutions where the inmates are able to work, or where labour is exacted; neither, on the other, are they hospitals where all are sick arid temporarily received and treated, but asylums where the aged and infirm are provided for during life ; and where consumptive and other chronic cases, most of whom have been in-patients or out-patients of hospitals, and, being entirely without resources, end their days. They are institutions sui generis, and fulfil a purpose not contemplated by any others. Number of NUMBER OF INMATES. Inmates. The following Table shows the number of inmates in the workhouses at the period of our inspection. TABLE No. 1. Total Number of Inmates and the Number of the Able-bodied iu the Workhouses at the Period of our Visit. Total. Able- Bodied. Total. Able- Bodied. 1 Lambeth, St. Mary - 879 132 21 Kensington ... 440 75 o St. Saviour’s - - 405 42 22 St. Margaret, Kensington 647 90 3 Bermondsey, St. Mary 531 154 23 Sf.George, Hanover-square 265 30 Magdalen. 24 Hackney ... 673 10 4 St. Olave’s - 277 48 25 East London - 656 215 6 St George the Martyr - 404 17 26 Islington, St. Mary - 470 27 6 Gieenwirh - 884 9 27 St. George, at Brompton - 320 45 7 St. Marylebone - 1,703 65 28 Chelsea - 453 17 8 St. Giles - 6(i7 38 29 Fulham - - - 312 12 9 St. Martin-in-the-Fields - 437 47 30 Rotherhithe, St. Mary 194 36 10 Strand - - 556 44 31 St. George-in-the-East 770 30 11 Holborn - - 459 26 32 St. Pancras - 1,960 296 12 Clerkenwell, St. James - 529 32 33 Paddington - 385 41 13 Shoreditch, St. Leonard - 784 56 34 Bethnal Green 1,175 43 14 Whitechapel - - 692 45 35 St. Luke, Middlesex 581 33 15 City of London - 844 120 36 Camberwell, St. Giles 404 18 16 Mile-End Old Town - 530 13 37 Sr. Mary, Newington 482 180 17 Stepney - - 558 59 38 Wandsworth and Clapham 524 19 18 Poplar - - 472 67 39 Hampstead ... 114 26 10 St Margaret, Westminster 179 8 40 West London - 456 14 20 St. James, Westminster “ 614 42 Single beds. Each inmate almost universally occupied a separate bed, except in the case of children, and of women with children; but in one or two wards of a very few workhouses double beds were used for the sick. Thus, in one ward at St. George-the-Martyr, the aged women, some of whom were sick, slept two in a bed ; and in another ward four or six infants were placed, heels to heels, in one bed ; whilst at St. Pancras and Clerkenwell two women and their children sometimes occupied one bed in the lying-in ward. Such an arrangement was veiy improper; but the exceptions in reference to adults were so exceedingly few that they only served to confirm the rule of the use of single beds. * We have obtained from the medical officers a Return showing, among other particulars, the number of sick in the several workhouses for three periods in 1865-6. This Return has been presented to the House of Lords, and is now in the course of being printed. The total number of inmates, including the able-bodied and sick, on the day of our visit in each case is stated in the Tables contained in the present Report.