Workhouse or Orphanage?

[Hopton]

My Great Great grandmother was born in Eamont Bridge Workhouse in 1843, her mother died three years later. On the 1851 census she is shown as a visitor at her Grandmother's house at Barton. Does anyone know if the Workhouse would have looked after a child without a mother, or would she have been placed in an Orphanage. And was there any Orphanage within the Barton, Eamont Bridge area?


                                          Janet

[sillgen]

Hi
Have you asked the local record office whether they have the workhouse records?    I am sure they would have tried to find family member to take the child - saves money that way!   The word "visitor" could be used very loosely to describe the fact that she was not an immediate family member perhaps?   If the family were not literate they would not know what the enumerator had put down.  The record office will also know about orphanages.
Andrea

[Hopton]

Hi Andrea,

   Many thanks for your reply, I have been in touch with the Kendal records office to see if they had any records of the people staying in the workhouse, but unfortunately they wrote back saying they had no actual records of the names and dates of the people there. The 1851 census is the only one showing her with this family, it was her grandmothers 2nd marriage, so maybe this is why she is shown as visitor, as she was not a grandchild to the head of house. I would like to think she was living with them, but if the family was close then why would she have been born in the workhouse.
  By the 1861 census she is shown as a servant living with a family in Lowther. I would love to know where she spent her childhood, as she is one of my favorite people in my tree.

       Thanks again

             Janet.