A history of the workhouse - in pictures

The Poland Street workhouse of the parish of St James, Westminster, opened circa 1727. This 1809 view of a women’s day-room by Thomas Rowlandson shows the inmates engaged in sewing and spinning.
Image: Peter Higginbotham / workhouses.org.uk

The women’s dining hall at St Pancras workhouse in 1897. On the serving table at the rear stand some scales – inmates could request that their portion be weighed out in front of witnesses if they suspected it was a short measure.
Image: Peter Higginbotham / workhouses.org.uk

Female inmates at work in the laundry at the Mitcham workhouse in 1896.
Photograph: Peter Higginbotham / workhouses.org.uk

Not all workhouse buildings fitted the popular grim image – the Bedminster establishment, now converted to offices, was one of more than 40 elegant designs by George Gilbert Scott and his partner William Bonython Moffatt.
Photograph: Peter Higginbotham / workhouses.org.uk

Christmas Day in the workhouse meant good food for the inmates, but the famous ode by George R Sims reflected what some saw as the patronising air of the well-to-do who had funded the feast.
Photograph: Peter Higginbotham / workhouses.org.uk

Ireland was part of the workhouse system, and conditions there were often dire. At Bailieborough in the 1890s, inmates stood to eat porridge from a communal 'trough'.
Photograph: Peter Higginbotham / workhouses.org.uk

Workhouse food improved greatly over the years. A major overhaul in 1901 was accompanied by the publication of an official workhouse cookbook containing such treats as Irish stew and roly-poly pudding.
Photograph: Peter Higginbotham / workhouses.org.uk

Criticism of the workhouse system grew in the early 1900s. In 1909, a Royal Commission was split in its conclusions, with members such as George Lansbury subsequently launching a campaign to 'Smash the Workhouse'.
Photograph: Mary Evans/Peter Higginbotham