Editing Workhouse (section)

{{Short description|Institution for those unable to support themselves}}
{{for|the prison in St. Louis known as "The Workhouse"|St. Louis Workhouse}}
{{Good article}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2016}}
[[File:Workhouse Nantwich.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Former workhouse in [[Nantwich]], dating from 1780]]
In Britain and Ireland, a '''workhouse''' ({{Langx|cy|tloty}},<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.llangynfelyn.org/dogfennau/tloty_reseitiau.html|title = Tloty Aberystwyth Reseitiau 1884/ Aberystwyth Workhouse Recipes, 1884}}</ref> lit. "poor-house") was a [[total institution]] where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as [[Scottish poorhouse|poorhouse]]s. The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' is from 1631, in an account by the mayor of [[Abingdon, Oxfordshire|Abingdon]] reporting that "we have erected within our borough a workhouse to set poorer people to work".<ref name=HigginbothamIntroduction>{{cite web |last=Higginbotham |first=Peter |title=Introduction |url=http://www.workhouses.org.uk/intro/ |publisher=workhouse.org.uk |access-date=9 April 2010}}</ref>

The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the [[Statute of Cambridge 1388]], which attempted to address the labour shortages following the [[Black Death in England]] by restricting the movement of labourers, and ultimately led to the state becoming responsible for the support of the poor. However, mass unemployment following the end of the [[Napoleonic Wars]] in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers in particular, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established system of poor relief was proving to be unsustainable. The [[Poor Law Amendment Act 1834|New Poor Law of 1834]] attempted to reverse the economic trend by discouraging the provision of relief to anyone who refused to enter a workhouse. Some Poor Law authorities hoped to run workhouses at a profit by utilising the free labour of their inmates. Most were employed on tasks such as breaking stones, crushing bones to produce fertiliser, or picking [[oakum]] using a large metal nail known as a spike.

As the 19th century wore on, workhouses increasingly became refuges for the elderly, infirm, and sick rather than the able-bodied poor, and in 1929 legislation was passed to allow local authorities to take over workhouse infirmaries as municipal hospitals. Although workhouses were formally abolished by the same legislation in 1930, many continued under their new appellation of Public Assistance Institutions under the control of local authorities. It was not until the introduction of the  [[National Assistance Act 1948]] ([[11 & 12 Geo. 6]]. c. 29) that the last vestiges of the Poor Law finally disappeared, and with them the workhouses.