Genealogy Chat

I've found during my research that in Victorian times and beyond, poorhouses, hospitals (usually for infectious diseases), and 'lunatic asylums' were often all located in the same premises. This can often lead to uncertainty re. the reason for a person's admission.

A census entry for what is ostensibly a 'poorhouse' sometimes lists a disease or mental illness against the relevant people.

I have a family in my tree, ALL their children were born in the workhouse infirmary. They lived in the poorest estate in SW London (The Ponton Road Estate) and thanks to the medical care they all got at birth, ALL their children survived into adulthood.

And we also need to remember that Workhouses were still in operation right up to the 1960s. All that happened is they changed the name from Workhouse to Reception Centres. Men and women (with small children) still seperated. And the men expected to go out to either work or find jobs.

There was a large Reception Centre near to me when I was a small child in Walworth. It was in Westmorland Road, and I know that there was also one in Plumstead High Street, as my ex-husband and his family were all there in the late 50s early 60s.

Thank you both

Tawny

I don't actually remember it coming in ................ I'm much younger than my brother, and children don't pay much attention to things like that

................... but I do remember the "doctor's man" visiting to collect the money in the late 1940s and up until 1955/56



By 1952, when my brother's wife had her first child ............ it had become common for a woman to have her first child in hospital, but any subsequent children at home under the care of a midwife, as long as everything had gone normally.

That must have come in with the NHS

http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

The above link gives details of the various Workhouses and Poor Law Unions, and their later use.
See if you can find one for your geographical area of interest - you'll probably find that Sylvia & GlitterBaby are correct. ;-)

I was born in 1984 so have never known anything but the NHS

Tawny .......................

It's not only a "possible" reason ............ it's probably THE reason!!


Only those of us who are older than you may know what it was like "before NHS"


NHS only came in in 1947 ..................... before that all medical treatment had to be paid for, and it was often expensive.

Almost all women had their children at home, sometimes with the District Nurse or midwife, often only with a female relative or friend to help out.

Even the very wealthy had their babies at home ................ but they would have had a specialist doctor, and temporary night and day nurses


Most workhouses had a hospital wing ................. both for the sick inmates and the elderly, and where neighbourhood people could be treated.


Your great grandmother may have had some problem delivering the child, and so went into the Workhouse hospital to get more expert help, or maybe her husband wanted her to have the extra care.



To give you an idea of how expensive medical treatment could be before NHS came in ....................


my brother was born in 1929, at home, with no doctor so far as I know.

In about 1943/44, aged about 13, he had heart trouble, and was actually confined to bed (or couch) for about 6 months. The doctor made regular house calls, and gave or prescribed medication.


My parents could not pay the bills right away, even though Dad had a very good job in restricted employment.


They were paying off that bill with the doctor until about 1955 or 1956 :-(

The "doctor's man" used to come every week, with his little black book, and write down the amount they had paid.

The doctor who treated my brother had retired by that point, and I think the practise was on it's 3rd owner .................. so I have no idea who actually got the money!

Thank you for giving me a possible reason.

Perhaps it was the nearest place that any hospital facilites

My great grandmother was born in 1907 and had children 8 children between 1927 and 1952 my grandfather (1934) remembers his mother going into the workhouse to have some of the younger children. Why may she have gone in as my great grandfather always worked hard and was able to provide for his family.

Tawny