Thread: Union Workhouse

Hello all

Can anyone tell me what the Class codes are for in Union Workhouses?

Hi,
I don't know about class codes but thought you and other users might be interested in this website, it is very good for checking if an ancestor has gone awol, It is a site I have found to be very useful. The Workhouse - www.workhouses.org.uk

Hi

To add to Noggin28’s post, I thought you may be interested in how these “classes” were used to allocate accommodation and work duties etc. in some Workhouses.

I have transcribed a small part of an article which appeared in Jackson's Oxford Journal on 14 October 1843.

Rules, Orders, and Regulations, Issued by the Poor Law commissioners
To the Guardians of the Poor within the City of Oxford

To each class shall be assigned that ward or separate building and yard which may be best fitted for the reception of such class, and each class of paupers shall remain therein, without communication with those of any other class.

Provided,

Firstly – That if for any special reason it shall at any time appear to the Guardians to be desirable to depart from the regulations contained in Article 9, in respect of any married couple, being paupers of the first and fourth classes, the Guardians shall be at liberty to resolve that such couple shall have a sleeping apartment separate from those of the other paupers.

Secondly – That any paupers of the fifth and sixth classes may be employed constantly or occasionally as assistants to the nurses of the sick wards, or in the care of infants, or as assistants in the household work, without communication with the paupers of the second and third classes.

Thirdly – That any pauper of the fourth class, whom the Master may deem fit to perform any of the duties of a nurse or assistant to the Matron, may be so employed in the sick wards, or those of the fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh classes, and any pauper of the first class who may by the Master be deemed fit, may be placed in the ward of the third class, to aid in the management, and superintend the behaviour, of the paupers of such class.

Fourthly – That the Guardians may make regulation, to be entered in to their minutes, for the classification of the boys and girls above the age of ten years, in any particular case where they shall deem it advisable to deviate from the regulations in Article 9.

Fifthly – That the paupers of the seventh class may be placed in such of the wards appropriated to the female paupers, as be deemed expedient, and the mothers of such paupers shall be permitted to have access to them at all reasonable times.

Sixthly – The Master of the workhouse shall allow the father or mother of any child in the same workhouse who may be desirous of seeing such child, to have an interview with such child at some one time in each day, in some room in the said workhouse to be appointed for that purpose.

Seventhly – That casual poor, wayfarers, and vagrants, admitted into the workhouse shall be kept in the vagrant ward, or other separate ward of the said workhouse, and shall be dieted in such manner and ………………………shall be set to such task of work as the said Guardians shall prescribe, ………………….. .