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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Surrey => Topic started by: rthom on Friday 05 February 10 22:52 GMT (UK)
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I would be interested if anyone knows whether the Epsom Workhouse (aka "Middle House") was still functioning as such in 1941 or whether it had evolved into a nursing home or similar.
Thanks, rthom
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Hi, if you go to this site www.workhouse.org.uk and search under workhouse addresses on left hand side of the page you will find Epsom..click on this and it takes you to a page all about it. As far as I can make out it changed its use to a hospital.
Susan
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There is also a link right at the bottom of the Epsom page that sends you to another site with a lot more info.
Good luck
Susan
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Thanks for the speedy reply, Susan.
These are nice sites and good info on an interesting if disturbing topic. I had come across these while googling around; but I still do not see anything that specifically tells us what the function of Middle House was in 1941.
I am interested because I have just come across a relative who passed away at Middle House in 1941. Her family appeared to be lower middle class, so I was surprised when the workhouse reference came up which didn't seem to fit her background.
Regards, rthom
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Hi again and you are welcome.
If you go to this page http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/WorkhouseEpsom.html and go down to the heading Statistics it gives one explanation of why it was also known as Middle House.
Susan
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Hi, hope you dont mind but did a bit of digging and it looks like The Workhouse became Epsom County hospital in 1930. So its possible it was still known to the locals as Middle House.
Found it on this page
http://beta.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/GetRecord/SHCOL_6203
Susan
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Hi Susan:
Thank you so much for the great digging. That makes a lot more sense.
This little interlude has lured me into learning more about the Workhouse system -- an important history lesson for us all to remember.
Regards, rthom
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I have my Great great grandfathers death certificate from July 1939, died at Middle House, Dorking Road, Epsom, Surrey, always wondered where that was, thank you ;D
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My Great Grandmother died at Middle House- she had been an invalid for a year or so before her death, and the "House" was definately a Nursing Home then in the 1930s.
Blimey- my Grandmother and her sisers would have DIED ON THE SPOT if people thought they had left her in the Work House!!!
Sally
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Hi Sally:
Yes, it's easy to understand how the dread "Workhouse" still carries an enormous stigma when we hear it mentioned. Yet, before the social welfare system, it is all the destitute or infirm had, short of living rough on the streets, if they had no relatives to support them. And this really wan't that long ago.
Definitely food for thought, especially for those of us in the the US currently struggling to overhaul a disfunctional health care system.
Regards, rthom
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By that time the old union workhouse in Dorking Road had become the Epsom "Guardians Institution". Its infirmary would have been the main provider of free medical care to the people of Epsom before the advent of the NHS into which it was subsumed in the late 1940's.
"Epsom Union Workhouse was recorded in many official documents as Middle House or 49, Dorking Road, Epsom. This probably stems from the 1904 guidance issued by the Registrar General that workhouse births should be disguised by the use of non-committal addresses. Similar guidance relating to deaths was only issued in 1919. After the workhouse was closed the buildings became Epsom Hospital."
http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/EpsomCemeteryBurialsH.shtml
http://www.epsomandewellhistoryexplorer.org.uk/WorkhouseEpsom.html
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right-- this has caused me a bit of a flutter, and I am now going to have to do some serious investigation on this!!!
When my great grandmother died the family were far from poor, although not actually rich! They were educating at least one daughter ( apparently) at a fee paying school, and 4 children were in employment. But great Grandfather was a merchant seaman, and away a lot of the time--
I will get back on this!!!
Sally
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The Poor Law infirmaries were reformed by the Local Government Act of 1929 which put them on the same footing as other local authority services, opening them up to all in need. It was no longer necessary to rely on the Poor Law in order to get treatment or care.
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Many thanks for the great insights.
This really is a very interesting topic -- almost worthy of a "sticky" elsewhere in RootsChat.
Regards, rthom
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As workhouses performed the function of a local infirmary many people who couldn't afford private nursing found themselves using them much in the way that we use hospitals today. When they ceased to function as workhouses most of them retained a function as part of the public health system. While newer hospitals took over the more complex medical functions which required modern facilities most were retained as nursing homes or natal hospitals for the poorer people. Others became asylums. The foundation of the NHS had little imediate effect on this situation.
Many are still nursing homes run by the NHS or annexes to modern hospitals.
David
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Thank you so much for posting this original post, because it confirms my suspicion that my grandfather's wife and 4 children ended up in the Epsom workhouse in 1914, when they returned from his army service in India.
It seems incredible but: my grandfather was serving with an Irish regiment in India (1911-1914) and his family went out there with him; my uncle Len was born out there. When WW1 was imminent, my grandfather's battalion was recalled, only to be sent out as part of the expeditionary force to France in 1914.
As far as I can make out, on a private's wage, his family weren't terribly well off. But it seems that they ended up in the Epsom workhouse during the WW1 years. My late aunt Betty was born in Middle House in 1919, when grandad had obviously returned from the war. He is listed, at her birth, as living at 'Press Forward Lodge, Leatherhead'.
Something I'm really interested in is: what were the conditions of living in the workhouse at this time (ie early 20th century) and also how were workhouse inmates regarded?
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Thanks for your input. As I said earlier, this daunting topic really provides food for thought for us all. Perhaps someone else will be able to jump in with some insights into the conditions in the original Middle House when it was a workhouse.
Regards, rthom
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Re: Epsom Workhouse "Middle House"
Don't know if this info is of any use to provide a "link", but here goes:-
:-\ During the Blitz of 1940/41 I was 8-9. I had a blister on my knee. I picked it (of course!). It turned septic and my leg swelled-up like a telegraph pole! Mum brought me from Sutton & Cheam ("Struggle & Scream") Hospital by 164 to Sutton "The Cock", thence by green 470, to Epsom District Hospital AKA "The Workhouse". I was about a week in an upstairs ward with open balcony guarded by diamond mesh screen. Overnight we could hear the bombing- more over Morden, Carshalton direction.
Bill- aka "St Helier Boy"
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Re: Epsom Workhouse "Middle House"
Don't know if this info is of any use to provide a "link", but here goes:-
:-\ During the Blitz of 1940/41 I was 8-9. I had a blister on my knee. I picked it (of course!). It turned septic and my leg swelled-up like a telegraph pole! Mum brought me from Sutton & Cheam ("Struggle & Scream") Hospital by 164 to Sutton "The Cock", thence by green 470, to Epsom District Hospital AKA "The Workhouse". I was about a week in an upstairs ward with open balcony guarded by diamond mesh screen. Overnight we could hear the bombing- more over Morden, Carshalton direction.
Bill- aka "St Helier Boy"
Interesting stuff Bill, always good to hear a bit of history, my main local history studies are Sutton & the St Helier Estate.
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Hi Mark1973
Thank you. Yours was the first response to my first try at using this website: still very shaky at navigating my way around it! I was born in Garendon Road Morden (parish of Carshalton) in 1932. Moved around the corner onto Reigate Avenue Sutton, a few months before the 1940 Blitz started. I lived there til I married Joan from Garendon Road in 1955. Via a flat in Courtenay Road Worcester Park, another in Carshalton Beeches and a room in Joan's Mum's in Garendon Road, we finally bought a house in Priory Crescent Cheam (2,625.00 !)in 1958; had a son and a daughter there and moved up here to Suffolk early 1973. I've recently been searching for info about our area prior to the building of St Helier Estate by the LCC. You'll appreciate that all my Sutton & Cheam, Morden, Carshalton info is now -well- vintage! If I can help filling-in any gaps for you at any time- just ask; I'm a mine of useless information! Best wishes,
Bill aka "St Helier Boy".
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Cheers Bill, would definitely be interested in a bit of history, i assume you've already found this site http://www.heliermemories.org.uk/index.aspx
I have a couple of books on the St Helier Estate, also a Piles directory of 1937 which lists all the heads of households of the newly built estate (Carshalton part only).
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Thanks, Mark.
I too, have a couple of paperbacks (?Sutton Libraries or somesuch) of St Helier and district.
I'd be very interested to know if the Piles directory showed the household into which I was born.
Our part of Garendon Road was JUST inside Carshalton's border and its parish. I was born June 1932 and. although I was only 7 or 8 when I moved round the corner (1939-1940) onto the Sutton Bypass, I still remember families like: Applegarth, Symonds, Favell, Nelson, Charrington, Sparks, Stackhouse, Bullard, Clarke, Glass, Gunn, Parker, Chase, Broad, MALLION (that's US!), Morton, Dobwell, Winskell,...to name but a few! I believe my parents and older brothers moved-in (from Islington) circa 1930.
Do let me know if there's anything at all I might be able to fill-in for you.
Cheers,
Bill Friday evening 21 Jan 2011
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In the 50's (and probably earlier & still much later) many of the old workhouses had become known as "reception centres".
My ex OH lived in one for a while. The younger children & older grils were housed with the mother and the older boys with the father. The father and older boys all went out to work daily. They remained there until such time that they could be rehoused by a council in a home that was large enougth to accomodate them.
Mother, Father, 2 daughters and 6 sons (later 7 sons).
This was in the Woolwich Reception Centre (the old workhouse - which is no longer there.
But I can remember the old workhouse which used to be at the top of Westmorland Road (SE17) which was demolished in the early 60's to make way for the Heygate Estate.
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@Mark1973
I've just discovered my father was born July 1939 in Middle House, Dorking Road
I was surprised to discover it was a workhouse too.
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I've just discovered my father was born July 1939 in Middle House, Dorking Road
It was Epsom County Hospital by then.