An “utterly brilliant” and deeply researched guide to the sights, smells, endless wonders, and profound changes of nineteenth century British history (Books Monthly, UK). Step into the past and experience the world of Victorian England, from clothing to cuisine, toilet arrangements to transport—and everything in between. A Visitor’s Guide to Victorian England is “a brilliant guided tour of Charles Dickens’s and other eminent Victorian Englishmen’s England, with insights into where and where not to go, what type of people you’re likely to meet, and what sights and sounds to watch out for . . . Utterly brilliant!” (Books Monthly, UK). Like going back in time, Higgs’s book shows armchair travelers how to find the best seat on an omnibus, fasten a corset, deal with unwanted insects and vermin, get in and out of a vehicle while wearing a crinoline, and avoid catching an infectious disease. Drawing on a wide range of sources, this book blends accurate historical details with compelling stories to bring alive the fascinating details of Victorian daily life. It is a must-read for seasoned social history fans, costume drama lovers, history students, and anyone with an interest in the nineteenth century.

What was it like in a Victorian Workhouse? Was the food really as bad as we imagine? Take a step back in time with Alan Gallop and ask yourself if you could have survived in such harsh conditions.

The stories of those who lived in the shadow of the workhouse'??During the nineteenth century the workhouse cast a shadow over the lives of the poor. The destitute and the desperate sought refuge within its forbidding walls. And it was an ever-present threat if poor families failed to look after themselves properly. As a result a grim mythology has grown up about the horrors of the 'house' and the mistreatment meted out to the innocent pauper. ??In this fully-updated and revised edition of his bestselling book, Simon Fowler takes a fresh look at the workhouse and the people who sought help from it. He looks at how the system of the Poor Law _ of which the workhouse was a key part _ was organised and the men and women who ran the workhouses or were employed to care for the inmates.??But above all this is the moving story of the tens of thousands of children, men, women and the elderly who were forced to endure grim conditions to survive in an unfeeling world.??'A poignant account ... draws powerfully on letters from The National Archives ... [Simon Fowler] brings out the horror, but it is fair-minded to those struggling to be humane within an inhumane system,' The Independent??'A good introduction,' The Guardian.??The history of workhouses and poverty ('misery history') has recently been prominently covered on TV shows like WDYTYA? and ITV's Secrets from the Workhouse, and referenced in historical dramas like The Village and Ripper Street.

The diary of Edith Lorrimer, England 1871 I was shown the laundry - a vast noisy sunless room full of steam and the sharp smell of soapsuds. I counted seven women slaving over the large tubs where the clothes are washed, their reddened faces shiny with sweat even in this weather...Condensation ran down the windows and pooled on the floor. Heavy wooden racks are pulled up and down from the high ceiling and the sheets and clothes are draped over them and hoisted up to the ceiling from where they drip on the unfortunates toiling beneath. No doubt Rosie takes her turn in here. Just to think of it filled my eyes with tears. What a terrible existence. Edith Lorrimer is the sheltered daughter of a wealthy widow who is on the Board of Governors at a workhouse for the destitute. Whilst visiting the workhouse, Edith meets with Rosie Chubb, a troubled orphan who is a liar, quick-tempered and always in trouble...

Voices from the Workhouse tells the real inside story of the workhouse - in the words of those who experienced the institution at first hand, either as inmates or through some other connection with the institution. Using a wide variety of sources — letters, poems, graffiti, autobiography, official reports, testimony at official inquiries, and oral history, Peter Higginbotham creates a vivid portrait of what really went on behind the doors of the workhouse — all the sights, sounds and smells of the place, and the effect it had on those whose lives it touched. Was the workhouse the cruel and inhospitable place as which it's often presented, or was there more to it than that? This book lets those who knew the place provide the answer.

The British workhouse is the stuff of literature and legend. But what exactly was it? Surprisingly, no full-scale history of the workhouse has ever been written. Here, historian Norman Longmate tells the full story, from its beginnings in Elizabethan times until its demise in the 1940s, though mainly concentrating on the Victorian workhouse in the years of its tarnished glory. He describes the circumstances in the 1830s that led to the opening of 600 new workhouses--an event that met with astonishingly little opposition among reformers. He also records the riots, the protests, and the pleadings with which the poor challenged their virtual enslavement, and the misery of their daily lives when they were finally incarcerated within the workhouse walls.

The recent discovery that as a young man Charles Dickens lived only a few doors from a major London workhouse made headlines worldwide, and the campaign to save the workhouse from demolition caught the public imagination. Internationally, the media immediately grasped the idea that Oliver Twist's workhouse had been found, and made public the news that both the workhouse and Dickens's old home were still standing, near London's Telecom Tower. This book, by the historian who did the sleuthing behind these exciting new findings, presents the story for the first time, and shows that the two periods Dickens lived in that part of London - before and after his father's imprisonment in a debtors' prison - were profoundly important to his subsequent writing career.

Life in a workhouse during the Victorian and Edwardian eras has been popularly characterised as a brutal existence. Charles Dickens famously portrayed workhouse inmates as being dirty, neglected, overworked adn at the mercy of exploitative masters. While there were undoubtedly establishments that conformed to this stereotype, there is also evidence of a more enlightened approach that has not yet come to public attention. This book establishes a true picture of what life was like in a workhouse, of why inmates entered them and of what they had to endure in their day-to-day routine. A comprehensive overview of the workshouse system gives a real and compelling insight into social and moral reasons behind their growth in the Victorian era, while the kind of distinctions that were drawn between inmates are looked into, which, along with the social stigma of having been a workhouse inmate, tell us much about class attitudes of the time. The book also looks at living conditions and duties of the staff who, in many ways, were prisoners of the workhouse. Michelle Higgs combines thorough research with a fresh outlook on a crucial period in British history, and in doing so paints a vivid portrait of an era and its social standards that continues to fascinate, and tells us much about the society we live in today.

First published in 1981. Professor Crowther traces the history of the workhouse system from the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 to the Local Government Act of 1929. At their outset the large residential institutions were seen by the Poor Law Commissioners as a cure for nearly all social ills. In fact these formidable, impersonal, prison-like buildings – housing all paupers under one roof – became institutionalised: places where routine came to be an end in itself. In the early twentieth century some of the workhouses became hospitals or homes for the old or handicapped but many continued to form a residual service for those who needed long-term care. Crowther pays attention not only to the administrators but also to the inmates and their daily life. She illustrates that the workhouse system was not simply a nineteenth-century phenomenon but a forerunner of many of today’s social institutions.

Whether it was 'the batille', 'the spike', 'the work'us' or simply 'the house', the Victorian workhouse was the cause of dread and shame for thousands of men, women and children. This book looks at the principles that lay beind the New Poor Law of 1834, at the design and construction of workhouses, and at the lives of those who entered them.