POOR LAW HOSPITALS

The Poor Law Amendment Act, 1834, recognised that parishes were too small to be effective units to provide adequate care for paupers and therefore several parishes were grouped together to form Unions under the direction of Boards of Guardians.  Each Union built a workhouse in its area, which provided accommodation for the needy poor.  Physically ill paupers could be admitted from their homes to the workhouse sick wards (which later became separate infirmaries).  The mentally ill and mentally handicapped had nowhere to go except to workhouses and similar institutions.  The workhouses, originally intended to house the able-bodied poor, gradually filled up with the chronic sick and mentally ill.  By 1866 some 21,000 sick and aged inmates of London workhouses were being cared for by their fellow elderly inmates, who were untrained in nursing skills and were usually aged 50 or over.  Medical care was almost non-existent.


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