The reality of the Windsor Workhouse

Transcript

Workhouse kept 96 paupers

NEARLY every major town in Berkshire possessed a workhouse, and the town of Windsor was no exception.

In the first of two articles, we look at how Windsor looked after its poor during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

Provision for the poor was taken care of by the Corporation of Windsor. This started in the form of what was known as a ‘pest house’.

Windsor’s original pest house was built in c.1604 and stood in Sheet Street.

The pest house was replaced by a workhouse in around 1731. Money was donated from local benefactors and cost £1,076 16s 8d to be built. An additional £500 was left in the will of Richard Topham for ‘procuring a convenient workhouse for employing in useful labour the poor of the parish’.

The remainder of the cost of the workhouse was donated by Sir Thomas Reeve, Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas and Windsor resident. The workhouse was built on Corporation-owned land and was governed by a board of trustees.

Contemporary descriptions of the workhouse shortly after it had been built describe the layout of the building.

There was a workroom, an ‘eating room’ a pantry, a ‘wett larder’, a kitchen, a master’s room, stores room, brewhouse and a wash house. A Parliamentary report recorded that the workhouse could hold up to 90 inmates.

There is a very interesting report which gives a very detailed description on how the New Windsor Workhouse was run in 1797. The workhouse is described as ‘a very convenient building, and seems to be kept tolerably clean. Feather beds are used’.

There are six or seven in each room; two sleep in a bed. 96 paupers, chiefly old people and children, are at present in the house’.

The workhouse provided work for its inmates by manufacturing linen and stockings and picking hair and wool. The report also gives details of what they were fed for each meal. For breakfast the inmates were given bread and broth. Dinner on a Sunday consisted of mutton and vegetables, and were given cold meat on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

For supper, adults received bread and cheese daily and children bread and butter.

A pint of beer was given to grown adults (and a smaller amount to children) at dinner and at supper.

The Windsor Workhouse was moved to Old Windsor in 1840; however, the former Windsor Workhouse was still standing in 1850 and was described as ‘an extensive building surrounded by a courtyard situated in Sheet Street, with a large garden in the back containing altogether about half an acre.

The Victoria Barracks now occupy the site of the original workhouse.

Next week will look at the history of the Windsor Union Workhouse, which was built in Old Windsor.

PATRON: Portrait of Sir Thomas Reeve who gave money to build Windsor’s first workhouse c.1730.

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