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AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2326
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 9:10 am: | 
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Reading through some of my old notes I just happened to notice that both Mary Ann Nichols and Annie Chapman were at the Lambeth Workhouse together in April of 1888, both of them leaving the workhouse in May of that year, Mary Ann Nichols on the 12th May but I have as yet no exact date for Chapman.
I do realise that it would not have been uncommon for any ‘unfortunate’ to spend time in the Lambeth Workhouse, but I do find it curious that Nichols and Chapman were murdered almost within a week of one another; and felt this might be well be connected to their stay in the Lambeth Workhouse.
Unfortunately although I am able to find lunatics who were ordered to be detained in the Lambeth Workhouse in 1887 & 1888, I an unable to find lunatics who may have been released from Lambeth Workhouse between May & September of 1888. |
Jennifer Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 2688
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 9:34 am: |
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Hi Ap,
I thought that men and women were kept seperate in workhouses, even those related to each other?
Jenni |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2330
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 26, 2005 - 12:21 pm: |
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Strictly speaking, Jenni, you are of course right, but then things were not perhaps as harsh back then in the LVP Workhouse as we imagine them today.
It comes as a quite a surprise to read a parliamentary report from 1887 which details the amount of liquor supplied to and then consumed by the inmates of the Workhouses of England, the grand sum of £44,721 was provided by the government for such pleasures. A considerable fortune in 1887.
Although usually separated, males and females did have avenues of contact within the Workhouse environment; much of the staff employed in the female wards were males, the porters etc; and it does seem there were shared facilities, like dining rooms - I have found several court cases where women have been fighting amongst themselves, and male inmates have appeared as witnesses - and halls - the tragic collapse of the seating gallery at Shadwell Workhouse in which one soul died and fifty others were seriously injured is sad testament to this sharing of facilities.
In 1886, Frances Spinks, the Matron of Poplar Workhouse, was up before the magistrate for bigamously marrying one her inmates, male of course… so they certainly had contact.
Good point though. |
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