WIRRAL TIME TRAVEL
BY ANDREW WOOD
CLATTERBRIDGE
WORKHOUSE
State-provided poor relief in England dated from
the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign in 1601, with the
passing of an Act for the Relief of the Poor which
made parishes legally responsible for looking after
their poor inhabitants.
The Act provided for the levying of a poor-rate tax
from local property owners. The 1601 Act made no
mention of workhouses although it provided that
materials should be bought to provide work for the
unemployed able-bodied - with the threat of prison
for those who refused. It also proposed the erection of
housing for the "impotent poor" that included those
who were elderly or chronically sick.
Parish poor relief was dispensed mostly through
"out-relief " (grants of money, clothing, food, or fuel)
to those who lived in their own homes. However,
the workhouse gradually began to evolve in the 17th
century as an alternative form of "indoor relief ", both
to save the parish money, and to act deter able-bodied
people who were required to work, usually without
pay, in return for their board and lodging. The passing
of the Workhouse Test Act in 1723, gave parishes the
option of denying out-relief and offering claimants
only the workhouse.
The Wirral Poor Law Union formally came into being
on 16th May 1836. Its operation was overseen by
an elected Board of Guardians, 57 in number,with a
Chairman and representatives of its 56 constituent
parishes. The population within the area covered by
the Union at the 1831 Census had been 17,342 with
parishes ranging in size from Nether Pool (population
19) to Birkenhead (2,569). The average annual poor-
rate expenditure for the period 1834-36 had been
£3,674 or 4s.3d. per head of the population.
A new Wirral Union workhouse was erected in 1836-
7 at Clatterbridge on the road from Birkenhead to
Chester. It was designed by William Cole. In 1837,
82 wirrallife.com
the Poor Law Commissioners approved a budget
of £2,500 for the construction of the building. The
workhouse was to accommodate 130 inmates. The
building was financed by a loan from a the Rev R M
Feilden, the Vicar of St Andrew's, Bebington, at 4½ per
cent interest. The fitting out of the establishment cost
£64.8s.0d.
The original water supply to the building may have
been from the nearby brook, but in 1839 an order
was issued to sink a four-foot brick-ringed well to
provide water. There were originally no baths in
the workhouse, The workhouse was economically
furnished. The new Board Room contained only an
oil-cloth covered deal table, 12 feet long by four feet
wide, and twelve strong rush-bottomed chairs. A
number of double-beds were purchased for young
inmates which later on were occupied by three
children each. By 1899, a large infirmary block
had been added at the north-east of the original
workhouse, with a second block added to its rear by
1912.
The workhouse represented the underbelly of
society, where anyone who was poor, homeless,
unemployed or ill was sent to work and live. As part
of a Royal Commission report into workhouses, the
Assistant Commissioner Gilbert Henderson visited
the Liverpool workhouse, which was in Brownlow
Hill. What he saw there was the segregation of the
sexes, a 12-hour working day, and almost constant
confinement to the Workhouse. His report said: “The
inmates of the workhouse were formerly allowed to go
out every Thursday afternoon - this permission led to
many irregularities, the paupers frequently returning
drunk, and begging or otherwise misconducting
themselves in the streets to the scandal of the
establishment. They also used to go out on Sundays
to church […] a regulation that was adopted in 1831,
which restricted the liberty of leaving the house to
the first Thursday afternoon in every month. The