Nightingale Wards

Many charities were set up by local business people, the first being the Magdalen Charity and these helped to support the infirm and needy. Quarterly payments were made to the 25 most diseased and infirm people. Other charities would supply clothing and one particular charity put 10 children through apprenticeships by supporting the cost of their fees.

In the 18th century Acts of Parliament, the Poor Law, were drawn up to cope with poor and needy. A building was constructed in Pitts Deep now known as Quay Road where the inmates were put to work spinning and making "fusee chains" for which Christchurch became well known during the 19th century. The workhouse was overseen by the Church Committee. The vicar of Christchurch called this building the "Red house" due to the colour of the brickwork. Eventually the workhouse became overcrowded and a new one was built at Fairmile at a cost of £47,000, though the original estimate was £12,000. Thus was created the Christchurch Union. The old workhouse was used by the vicar and then handed to the town, now the town's museum known as The Red House..

Christchurch Hospital, see photo, in Fairmile was originally built as the towns workhouse and the site expanded rapidly over the years due to the inclusion of Bournemouth in to the Christchurch Union. It was built to replace the original workhouse which is now the Red House Museum in 1881. The workhouse's last additional building was the women's infirmary. On the roof was constructed a shelter for TB cases. Outdoor treatment of this disease was normal practice until the arrival of antibiotics. This building became known as the infamous G block.

The institution covered an immense site as it needed to include people from Bournemouth. See photo 3 The children from the workhouse were housed on the opposite side of Fairmile road in what was then called Cottage Homes. Much of the site was lost to redevelopment including new homes in the mid 90's. The workhouse lost it's status in 1948 with the advent of the welfare state. (NHS) The hospital is still in use today on a smaller site specializing in orthopaedic, pathology and X-Ray and Macmillan centre for cancer care, whilst some of the vast grounds have been developed for housing for key workers and retirement.

Photo below shows a picture of a ward in the Women's infirmary. Long narrow wards with beds on either side were called "Nightingale Wards" named after Florence Nightingale of the Crimea Era. Take note of the highly polished parquet floor later to be replaced on the grounds of hygiene when the infirmary became a hospital.. Part of the workhouse complex was requisitioned by the Red Cross, the local President being Lady Malmesbury in 1915, during World War 1. The casualties of the terrible trench warfare were transported here from Southampton to Christchurch station, then carried by volunteers to the wards. The wounded soldiers considered the VAD nurses as "Angels". See photo 4.

Life & Death in the Workhouse

Life was meant to be much tougher inside the workhouse than outside, and the buildings themselves were deliberately grim & intimidating - they were designed to look like prisons. They were full of illness & disease brought about by over-crowding & the starvation diet. When you were admitted to the workhouse, you were stripped, searched, washed & had your hair cropped. You were made to wear a prison-style uniform. Women were at all times kept separate from the men, including their husbands. Children were kept separately from adults - even from their own parents. A well known story tells how a labourer gave notice to leave the workhouse with his wife & children - only to be told: "You cannot take your wife out. We buried her three weeks ago".

Seventeenth century records held in the Priory Church archives list apprenticeships for the poor children of the parish and their names and those of the employers. In fact, the Poor Law records for Christchurch document these names from 1698 - many decades before there was a workhouse in the town. The documents reveal that the children could be bound to a variety of trades: the Newfoundland fishing trade accounted for some; a range of skills were taught to others. The most unusual on record must surely be mud-wall making. Others in this period include tailoring, cordwaining (shoemaking), husbandry, housewifery and servants, and mariners. Husbandry and housewifery would have been unlikely to be anything more than unpaid drudgery. Alarmingly, after the names of the apprentices in the list 1698-1744 appears the word 'dead' not infrequently.

Some of the girls were put into service via adverts in The Salisbury Journal to creditable and respectable housekeepers with a premium of £10 to the employer for each child placed. This was a common practice in those days, and by offloading a pauper at a premium to defray parish expenses, future savings were made, as well as a position found for the workhouse child. The system was widely abused in the parishes generally: girls in service were frequently appallingly overworked.

Christchurch Union overseers thought of another ingenious scheme to reduce the relief expenditure and the level of the Poor Rates. This threat to dispossess those who repeatedly requested relief was issued in 1824 stating: Whereas several persons in this parish receiving constant relief are possessed of cottages, lands and gardens, it is agreed to propose to such persons that they convey their respective cottages and lands to this parish, to take effect after the death of such persons, and in the case of the refusal of such paupers to make such conveyances, on account of preserving the same for their children, the relief to these paupers to cease, as it will be expected that they shall be from that time supported by their respective children for whom such cottages and lands are preserved.

With schemes of this type, it is hardly surprising to read the observations of the Revd Bingley (MS History of Christchurch, 1813) that it is entirely from the excellent regulations adopted and persevered in, that the Poors' rates in the parish of Christchurch are so much lower than those of almost all the other parishes of the county.

Another practice of the overseers was to hire out workhouse labour on the repair of the roads in the parish or farm work. The daily charge was a shilling for an able-bodied man, 10d for someone not able-bodied, and a mere 8d for a man over 60. According to the 1832 Poor Law Commissioners' Report, the workmen were permitted to keep one sixth of the wages so earned.

Poor Law

The first legislation for providing relief to the poor were the Acts of 1572, 1597 & 1601.

The 1601 POOR LAW ACT gave responsibility to local parishes for looking after very poor people, who were able to claim assistance from the parish's householders. Poor people were able to live at home when they were getting parish relief.

The 1834 POOR LAW AMENDMENT ACT declared that people receiving assistance from the parish had to live in a workhouse and could no longer live in their own home. They would be made to work hard in the workhouse; which is how the term originated. The Act allowed parishes to join together into unions responsible for building workhouses and for running them. Many workhouses appeared across the country, a typical cost to the unions were in the region of £5,000. By1926 there were over a quarter million inmates and about 600 workhouses with an estimated population of about 400 inmates in each.

In 1926 there were 226,000 inmates & around 600 workhouses with an average population of about 400 inmates each.

The 1929 LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT abolished workhouses & their responsibilites were given to county borough & county councils.

More info on Poor Law

Photo Gallery

VAD Nurses in 1916 VAD Nurses in 1916

The Women's Ward at christchurch Hospital The Women's Ward at christchurch Hospital

Christchurch Union Workhouse - TB shelter on roofChristchurch Union Workhouse - TB shelter on roof