Editing Workhouse (section)

===Work===
{|class=wikitable style="margin: 0 1em 1em 1em; border: 1px solid #8888aa; background: #f7f8ff; width:20%;" align=right cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0
! style="padding: 0 5px 0 5px; background:#ccccff;" align="center" colspan="2"| Daily workhouse schedule{{sfnp|Higginbotham|2006|p=19|ps=none}}<br />
|- style="font-size: 90%; background: #fff;" align="left"
| 5:00-6:00
| Rise
|- style="font-size: 90%; background: #ececec;"
| 6:30–7:00
| Breakfast
|- style="font-size: 90%; background: #fff;" align="left"
| 7:00–12:00
| Work
|- style="font-size: 90%; background: #ececec;" align="left"
| 12:00–13:00
| Dinner
|- style="font-size: 90%; background: #fff;" align="left"
| 13:00–18:00
| Work
|- style="font-size: 90%; background: #ececec;"
| 18:00–19:00
| Supper
|- style="font-size: 90%; background: #fff;" align="left"
| 20:00
| Bedtime
|-
|colspan="2" style="color:black;text-align:center;"|<small>Sunday was a day of rest. During the winter months inmates were allowed to rise an hour later and did not start work until 8:00.</small>{{sfnp|Higginbotham|2006|p=19|ps=none}}
|}
Some Poor Law authorities hoped that payment for the work undertaken by the inmates would produce a profit for their workhouses, or at least allow them to be self-supporting, but whatever small income could be produced never matched the running costs.{{sfnp|Crowther|1981|p=27|ps=none}} In the 18th century, inmates were poorly managed, and lacked either the inclination or the skills to compete effectively with free market industries such as spinning and weaving. Some workhouses operated not as places of employment, but as houses of correction, a role similar to that trialled by Buckinghamshire magistrate [[Matthew Marryott]]. Between 1714 and 1722 he experimented with using the workhouse as a test of poverty rather than a source of profit, leading to the establishment of a large number of workhouses for that purpose.{{sfnp|Poynter|1969|pp=15–16|ps=none}} Nevertheless, local people became concerned about the competition to their businesses from cheap workhouse labour.{{sfnp|Crowther|1981|p=27|ps=none}} As late as 1888, for instance, the Firewood Cutters Protection Association was complaining that the livelihood of its members was being threatened by the cheap firewood on offer from the workhouses in the East End of London.{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=110|ps=none}}

Many inmates were allocated tasks in the workhouse such as caring for the sick or teaching that were beyond their capabilities, but most were employed on "generally pointless" work,{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=111|ps=none}} such as breaking stones or removing the [[hemp]] from telegraph wires. Workhouses were sometimes colloquially known as 'The Spike', which may derive from the common task of picking [[oakum]] using a large metal nail, also known as a spike.{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=111|ps=none}} Bone-crushing, useful in the creation of [[fertiliser]], was a task most inmates could perform,{{sfnp|Nicholls|1854|p=394|ps=none}} until a government inquiry into conditions in the [[Andover workhouse scandal|Andover workhouse]] in 1845 found that starving paupers were reduced to fighting over the rotting bones they were supposed to be grinding, to suck out the marrow.{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|pp=8–9|ps=none}} The resulting scandal led to the withdrawal of bone-crushing as an employment in workhouses and the replacement of the Poor Law Commission by the [[Poor Law Board]] in 1847.{{sfnp|Higginbotham|2006|p=19|ps=none}} Conditions were thereafter regulated by a list of rules contained in the 1847 [[Consolidated General Order]], which included guidance on issues such as diet, staff duties, dress, education, discipline, and redress of grievances.{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=130|ps=none}}

Some Poor Law Unions opted to send destitute children to the British colonies, in particular to [[Canada]] and [[Australia]], where it was hoped the fruits of their labour would contribute to the defence of the empire and enable the colonies to buy more British exports. Known as [[Home Children]], the [[Philanthropic Society#Philanthropic Farm School|Philanthropic Farm school]] alone sent more than 1000 boys to the colonies between 1850 and 1871, many of them taken from workhouses. In 1869 [[Maria Rye]] and [[Annie Macpherson]], "two spinster ladies of strong resolve", began taking groups of orphans and children from workhouses to Canada, most of whom were taken in by farming families in [[Ontario]]. The Canadian government paid a small fee to the ladies for each child delivered, but most of the cost was met by charities or the Poor Law Unions.{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=147|ps=none}}

As far as possible, elderly inmates were expected to undertake the same kind of work as the younger men and women, although concessions were made to their relative frailty. Or they might be required to chop firewood, clean the wards, or carry out other domestic tasks.{{sfnp|Fowler|2007|p=174|ps=none}} In 1882 Lady Brabazon, later the [[Countess of Meath]], set up a project to provide alternative occupation for non-able-bodied inmates, known as the [[Brabazon scheme]].{{sfnp|Higgs|2007|p=63|ps=none}} Volunteers provided training in crafts such as knitting, embroidery and lace making, all costs initially being borne by Lady Brabazon herself. Although slow to take off, when workhouses discovered that the goods being produced were saleable and could make the enterprise self-financing, the scheme gradually spread across the country, and by 1897 there were more than 100 branches.{{sfnp|Higginbotham|2012|loc=Brabazon scheme|ps=none}}