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info on parish records.

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  • info on parish records.

    I'm currently going through the 1785-1812 St James Clerkenwell baptisms and on the same line where people's baptism's have been transcribed it says "workhouse" and sometimes "poor" or a "B".
    Can someone please shed some light on this for me?

    thanks

  • #2
    Sometimes in Parish Registers the Vicar would make some comment. Some of them reveal more about the Vicar's prejudices than anything else. I would think that your St James records are showing those who were living in poverty or in the workhouse and the B would indicate that child was a bastard.
    Grampa Jim passed away September 2011

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    • #3
      Thanks Jim. So what is a workhouse ?

      thanks

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      • #4
        A workhouse is where people went when they had nowhere else to live and no money, often unmarried mothers with children, widows with children and men who had fallen on hard times, no work etc. It was the equivalent of Social Security that we have today only very very harsh and everyone lived in one big building and as the name suggest were given work to do in order to stay there and be fed.
        The workhouses replaced parish relief payments that were the first social security benefits.
        Margaret

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        • #5
          Put simply, it was where people went who could not support themselves ... think Oliver Twist at beginning of the book.

          There is quite a lot of information on http://www.familytreeforum.com/conte...and-Workhouses in our Reference Library including a link to http://www.workhouses.org.uk/ which gives much more.
          Caroline
          Caroline's Family History Pages
          Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

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