Stoke-on-Trent Local History

 Stoke-upon-Trent Union Workhouse (The Spittals)

 

Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton formed the area covered by the Stoke-upon-Trent Union in 1836. Stoke was the first manufacturing area to be placed under a board of guardians according to the Poor Law Amendment Act (1834), and the reason was that there was something of a crisis. Two of the officers were convicted of embezzlement the cashier absconded and thirty percent of the rates collected were lost. At the same time the potter union declared its intention to take over the administration of relief and use rates to support industrial action.

It became impossible for the vestry to make decisions and in December 1835 a public meeting passed a resolution asking the Poor Law Commission to send an investigator, to which both local manufacturers like Ridgeway and working class ratepayers agreed. Rather than campaign against the principles of the 1834 Act, the union was trying to gain control on the new board. The poor law assistant commissioner arrived in March 1836 and by the end of the month the Stoke-upon-Trent Union had adopted the new Act.

However while the union urged a £6 qualification for membership of the board of guardians, the assistant commissioner instead recommended a £20 qualification. The subsequent election resulted in only one guardian sympathetic to the union  being elected and when the union's funds were exhausted in the long strike of 1836-7, strikers could not receive relief from the guardians and the strike was defeated.

 

The workhouse grew enormously from the original two blocks of 1832.  In 1842 a school house, hospital and vagrants wards were added; a new school block and chapel in 1866, with further additions through into the early twentieth century.

From the end of the 1830's, work was to be provided within the premises, which was part of the aim to make the workhouses repellent tot he poor. They became self-sufficient, even to having a wharf on the canal over the road to bring in stone for the vagrants to break.

As numbers increased so the facilities to supply all aspects of life also increase. Capacity was increased to 500 people after 1836 and to 800 people by 1855.

 

Parish of Stoke-upon-Trent The Guardians of the above parish will be ready, at a Meeting of the Board to be held on Wednesday, the 23rd instant, to receive Tenders for the supply of the under-mentioned Articles from the 29th instant to the 25th day of December next.  Best Seconds Flour, at per sack of 16 stones net. Oatmeal, at per load of 240 lbs. net. Good Beef - consisting of Beds, Rounds and Sticking Pieces, or in Sides, at per stone of 14 lbs. net. Tea, Coffee, Moist Sugar, Rice, Pepper, Starch, Blue, Treacle, Candles, Brown Soap, each at per lb. Soft Soap, at per firkin of 64 lbs. net. Peas, at per bushel of 60 lbs. net. Coffins, made of inch elm, well pitched and ribbed inside, for persons above 14 years or age. - ditto - under 14 years of age. - ditto - for infants. Tenders will be received for the under-mentioned Articles until the 25th day of March, 1841. Strong Hurden, Linsey Brown, and striped Grey Grogram, Blankets, Cotton Counterpanes, Cotton Bed Ticks, Linen ditto, Cotton Sheeting, Linen ditto, Calico shirting, Linen ditto, Coloured Cotton for petticoats, ditto for gowns,  Fustian for jackets, &c, Moleskin, for ditto, Cotton Handkerchiefs for men, ditto for women, coarse Cambric for women's caps, Woollen Coverlids, Woollen Cloth, Flannel, Stockings, Hats and Caps for men and boys, Canvass, coarse Chip or Straw Bonnets. Samples of all the above articles, as far as practicable, to be sent with each tender. Parties contracting will be required to enter into a bond, with two sufficient sureties, whose name, residence, and calling must be mentioned in the tender. Tenders to be delivered to the Clerk to the Guardians not later than ten o'clock on the 23rd, free of expense. Thomas Griffin, jun. Clerk to the Guardians. Parish Office, Stoke-upon-Trent, Sept 10th 1840.   Staffordshire Advertiser Newspaper, 19th September 1840

  

The vagrants were a problem for the Guardians. By 1849  2,342 passed through the workhouse.
Their reputation for criminality and for bringing disease led to an increasingly unpleasant reception for them. Eventually, new vagrants blocks were built in 1894 on London Road. Each male cell had a stone-breaking cell behind.

 

 

 
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Next: Newcastle Workhouse

questions / comments / contributions? email: Steve Birks

03/12/2001