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Workhouse People
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St Mary Stoke, Ipswich
Ipswich Workhouses
‘The First in the County’
Suffolk’s first Workhouse was almost certainly in Ipswich. When Henry Tooley, ‘the richest merchant in town’ died in 1551, he left most of his fortune to the poor of the town, with the bequest it was to be used to provide accommodation and relief for the Poor of the town. To this end the Tooley Foundation was set up. In December 1568 the Foundation Committee decided to acquire premises in order to establish a Municipal Poor House. The former priory of the Dominicans, otherwise Black Friars or Friars Preachers, which occupied an extensive site in the south east corner of the town, bordering what is now known as Foundation Street, was identified and purchased in 1569. The purchase costs were met by the sale of some of Tooley’s properties in Ipswich, while the running costs were covered by a Poor Rate of on average one or two pence per week per householder. Levied on the 300 + borough householders who qualified as tax payers, this amounted to an annual amount in the region of £170.
According to the Town Charter of 1572, Christ’s Hospital, (as the main building was thereafter known), was intended to handle up to 40 inmates, categorised within two groups: a] ‘Innocent victims of circumstances, namely the aged, orphaned, widowed, and sick’. b] Vagrants and vagabonds begging without real necessity, who are the lazy drones of the Commonwealth, and the seminary of thieves’.
Whether the old building became delapidated or as a consequence of restructuring, but early in 1574, a great new workhouse was constructed on the same site, a Dutchman was employed, and the necessary tools and materials were bought in order to provide work for 40 people. Much of the work was aimed at the linen and cloth trade, with jobs such as Carding, Spinning, & Weaving though an early successful venture was that of the ‘Municipal candleworks’. Later in the 1590’s attempts were made to co-ordinate the cloth manufacturing with a similar dutch venture, though this didn’t really get off the ground.. Finances for the purchase of the materials required were mainly provided by parochial contributions donations or bequests, often from persons with a connection with that parish, alternatively a grant for such expenditure could be obtained under a 1576 Act of Parliament.
By the early 17th century, partly as a consequence of the growth in the population of the Borough, but also due to the introduction of new Poor Laws in 1601 which passed the responsibility of the poor on to the hands of the individual parishes, [of which Ipswich had fourteen]. Christ’s Hospital had ceased to act as a Municipal Workhouse for the borough, though it maintained it’s role as a Charity School until late in the 18th century. All the borough’s parishes then established their own workhouse, some were also the result of bequests of individual parishioners, while others were ‘engaged by the parish officers as occasion required, without regard to either situation or convenience’ Most of them were too small to attempt such basics as the separation of sexes or ages.
In 1698 Mary Wright bequested 5 messuages in St Clement’s to the trustees and church-wardens of the parish ‘to be fitted up for the needy poor, partly as a workhouse for the children, who should be taught to read for one hour every day’. The site of this workhouse backed onto Hog Lane, and was later occupied by nos 46 – 54 Fore Street. The conveyance deed instructed the churchwardens to distribute 40 shillings annually from the poor rates to 40 poor persons. In 1835, the 23 resident paupers of St Clements workhouse, were rewarded to the sum of 5 pence for every 18 pence worth of spinning they achieved. The houses continued to be occupied as the parish workhouses until 1842 when they were pulled down.
In 1729, after some discussion the curates of St Peters and St Mary Elms were appointed to administer the legacy of Ann Smyth of c£5,000, ‘to build and maintain an almshouse in St Mary Elms for twelve poor women over 50 years of age’. This later became the workhouse..
In 1680 John Rednall gave a ‘hay house and four small tenements, near the town ditches, together with their gardens’, to the churchwarden and overseers of the poor of the parish of St Mary le Tower. Originally used as the parish workhouse, some form of renovation work was carried out in 1759 as this date was inscribed on the building. By 1844 these premises were being let to various tenants.
Land tax figures for 1778 shows that St Mathews had a yearly rate charge of 19 shillings while St Lawrence bore a bill of 12 shillings, whether this was as a consequence of a larger building or a more costly rate.
In 1786 a female was apprehended in Colchester, described as a rogue and vagabond, she was given a ‘vagrants pass to reach St Mathews Ipswich which was deemed to be her place of settlement, where she would have certainly been housed with male and female inmates, however later that year she and another inmate stole clothing from the other inmates before absconding into the night. By 1822 St Mathews [like St Margarets] had ‘remedied the most disgusting and promiscious intermixture in the sleeping rooms’.
Maintaining these workhouses along with their inmates was particularly costly to the Ipswich parishioners. In 1822 a committee set up to consider the running of workhouses and poor relief in general highlighted the fact that Ipswich was spending significantly more per head on it’s poor than other towns of a similar size. The committee recommended that the parishes should unite and build one large workhouse to hold 500 inmates, who could be properly classified and usefully employed. The Bosmere and claydon union Workhouse at Barham was quoted as a model, but nothing was done to implement the recommendations of the committee for some 12 years. The Committee, further concluded the overseers of the Borough were a soft touch, with considerable numbers of able-bodied paupers far better off than their employed compatriates..it was decreed any relief given to those who could not or would not work, should be confined to those actually resident in the workhouse. relief payments was set at a basic level and had to be earned. Poor house meals were basic and repetative by design. Bread, and cheese, meat, suet puddings, some days hot, some cold, and washed down with beer. The rules also ordered that staff should have the same menu as the inmates, though in reality this was very open to abuse. It was estimated the cost to maintain an inmate was on average 3 shillings per week per pauper. With numbers in the workhouse rarely exceeding 250, this would equate to in the region of £1,600 per annum.
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