No Place for Idle Hands-Part 1

Working life in Irish Workhouses

Life in Irish workhouses was not a straightforward case of finding work for paupers and making sure they did it. This was because the British Parliament had very set ideas about the employment of the poor.

A 1782 Act of Parliament stated that it was concerned with "the better relief and employment of the poor". This shows that in the minds of politicians, relief and employment went hand in hand.

If we fast forward to the 19th century we see that the concept of employing the poor had evolved. As well as a general consensus that paupers should be working within the workhouse walls, the instructions for pauper industry have become more specific. In the British Isles this is most evident in the Irish workhouse rules.

 The 1844 Irish Workhouse Rule:

Paupers...shall be kept employed according to their capacity & ability; but no pauper shall work on his own account, or on account of any party other than the Board of Guardians; & no pauper shall receive any compensation for his labour.

It is interesting to note the use of the phrase "capacity & ability". This shows that the British Poor Law Commission recognised that not everyone could do the same amount of work, nor type of work. This phrase also meant that it was possible for skilled labour, such as lace-making, to take place within workhouse walls. However, skilled labour in Irish workhouses was to become a contentious topic.

The Poor Law Commissioners in England had several abiding worries. One was that workhouses would be seen as a provider of jobs. The last thing that the Commissioners wanted was a situation where any unemployed person could simply turn up at the workhouse and be handed a job.

The Boards of Guardians had a very different point of view. They thought that workhouses could be run as self-sufficient enterprises rather than institutions which were entirely funded by local rate-payers. In their minds, a self-supporting enterprise would generate better conditions and future prospects for paupers, as well as easing their own financial burdens.

The Guardians knew that entering the workhouse was very shameful to Irish people. Some poor people were actually willing to starve rather than enter the workhouse confines. And so it was very unlikely that Irish paupers would ever consider using the workhouse as a convenient source of employment.

The next biggest worry that Commissioners had was that workhouse industry would impinge on local businesses. We know this from correspondence between Boards of Guardians and the Poor Law Commissioners. However, neither the Guardians nor the press thought this was a valid concern as a journalist writing for The Nation in 1853 stated:

...in no instance has the encouragement of pauper industry been found to interfere with the legitimate privileges of the independent tradesmen outside.

It is no surprise then to discover that some of the Boards of Guardians and even Poor Law Inspectors sought to modify the Commissioners’ approach to industry in Irish workhouses.

We have all heard of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, 1851. This huge event was a showcase for Victorian industry. However, not a lot of people know that there was a Great Industrial Exhibition held in Dublin in 1853. It was the largest event of its day to be held in Ireland, with over 1 million visitors. Various Irish industries were showcased, including quite incredibly, products of workhouse industry. One journalist was particularly impressed by the 'most creditable specimens of female skill in the way of doyleys, laces, stockings, quilts' . He goes on to express his dissatisfaction with the Poor Law Commissioners' attitude to skilled labour in the workhouses by writing that the workhouse items 

'speak powerfully of the vast extent of ingenuity, enterprise and skill which the law tries in vain to strangle.'

His views are clear; paupers are destitute of systems to support themselves, not of skill, nor the will to work. This message is particularly moving when we consider the high numbers of children in the workhouse system. The journalist notes 'the beautiful fancy work', 'great variety of knitted work' and 'clever embroidery' all created by the nimble fingers of the workhouses' young inmates. 

So while many paupers did spend their days engaged in menial and repetitive activities, a certain number of inmates engaged in skilled labour, producing high quality goods. This is a hugely under researched area of Irish Workhouse history and is a special area of interest for the Irish Workhouse Museum. We would love to discover some of the items produced by pauper industry but as yet, no examples of workhouse made lace or hair nets have been discovered. 

By Elizabeth Carter