Inside the Workhouse

Conditions in the new union workhouses were often compared to slavery… Only 1 in 6 people were able bodied and yet those who needed care were not cared for in the way that they needed… Reverend Thomas Spencer (first chairman of the Bath Union Workhouse Guardians) stated that workhouse should be used as a deterrent, and so the aim of workhouse life was to make it as unpleasant as possible to deter other poor people...