Children and the Metropolitan Workhouse

Abstract

Much of the preceding discussion on nursing and maternal care has skirted around the significance of the workhouse as a centre of operations and a site of care in itself. This chapter focuses more directly on these institutions, examining how common child inmates were; how distinctive they were as users compared with adults; and what the role of the workhouse was in their care. In short, it picks up the question of whether workhouse officers showed any sense of pauper childhood being a time of distinct needs; whether parents or children themselves used the institutions to achieve any particular aims; and whether this promoted any specific outcomes for the children involved. The role of the workhouse as an appropriate site for childcare will also be considered, particularly in the light of the findings about the importance of maternal care already reported. This chapter thus broadens the view of parish treatment of childhood to consider wider questions of the management of poverty and the agency of children themselves.