Mile End Old Town Workhouse and Poor Law Hamlet

A Strong Brick Building near Stepney Church, (formerly a Musick-House of no good Repute, and for that Reason suppress'd by the Magistrates) was fitted up and opened at Lady-Day 1725, for receiving the Poor of this Hamlet ; and there are now in it 31 Men, Women, and Children, who are all employed at picking Ockam, under the Care of a poor Man and his Wife, who are allowed 5 s. per Week, with their Lodging and Maintenance in the House.
   THE whole is governed by six Trustees, one of which is the Church-Warden of the Hamlet : Each of them have the Charge of the House for a Month, to buy Provisions, visit the House, &c.
   THEY have Flesh three Times a Week: Their Breakfasts and Suppers are Milk and Bread, Cheese and Butter.
   THE Charity-School for 21 Boys and 10 Girls is in the lower Part of the House, and the Mistress of the Girls is allowed an Apartment and Maintenance in the House ; and such of the Children as are Parish Orphans, are set to Work, as well as taught to read and write.

According to Cleminson (1983), a new workhouse was set up at Mile End Old Town in 1803 following local protests about the local Parish Committee's misuse of the Poor Rate. A house was leased for the purpose from a Revd. Thirwell. By 1828, 284 inmates occupied the then hopelessly overcrowded premises.

An 1830 map shows the Mile End Old Town parish workhouse located in Alderney Place, off Globe Road in Mile End,

After 1834

In 1836, Mile End Old Town parish became part of Stepney Poor Law Union. In the 1840s, the former Mile End Old Town parish workhouse in Alderney Place was used by the Stepney Board of Guardians to accommodate able-bodied men and fever patients.

In 1857, Mile End Old Town became a separate Poor Law 'Hamlet'. A new workhouse, for 500 adults inmates, was built in 1858-9 on a seven-acre site to the north of Mile End Road adjacent to the Jews' burial ground. A new road, Bancroft Road, was created to provide access to the workhouse.

The first stone of the new workhouse was officially laid in August 1858 by Chairman of the Guardians, Spencer Charrington Esquire. The building was designed by William Dobson in a plain Domestic Tudor style and constructed Messrs. Ayers of Dover at a cost of £20,258.

In 1881-3, a new larger infirmary was built on the site of the old infirmary and imbecile wards. It comprised three parallel three-storey blocks with administration and services at the centre flanked by male and female ward pavilion as shown on the 1894 map below.

Various other additions and alterations took place including the conversion of the school block to a nurses' home in 1910.

From 1904, to protect them from disadvantage in later life, the birth certificates for those born in the workhouse gave its address just as The Lodge, Bancroft Road.

Mile End Old Town, Middlesex, London

Up to 1834

After 1834

Staff

Inmates

Records

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