FIONA LEWIN: The inmates wouldn't know what time it was.

They would be told what to do and when. Maybe there'd be a

bell. But as part of wanting to take some agency back for

themselves, they've created their own sundials. They must

have done a lot of calculations for that.

And it's a really special moment, very poignant, I think,

on days when it is sunny, when we can see that shadow, to think

that people were stood here like that maybe 200 years ago,

certainly over 100 years ago, trying to work out a simple

thing like what time of day it was, is something really quite

special in.

JAMES GRASBY : 1834 a new law was passed to cope with the

numbers of people who had fallen on hard times. Workhouses were

to be built to house men women and children in segregated

wings, and those who were able bodied would be expected to earn

their keep.

The new system was based partly on a Workhouse that had been up

and running for ten years by the time the new law was passed, and

that building, still carrying a sense of what it might have felt

like 200 years ago, with its bare walls and floors, cast-iron

beds, and the hollering voices of costume re-enactors, survives

today, and a visit to the Southwell Workhouse is a

sobering experience.

Have you ever imagined being a fly on the wall of history? Join

me for an inside view of the stories of people, places and

moments that made us.

I'm historian James Grasby. Lean in for a tale from time, Back

When.

I'm slightly bewildered, I have to say, looking at this great

Georgian building. Brick, three stories, slate roof, very

handsome front door painted in blue, casement windows prettily

arranged. This doesn't look to me like doom and gloom.

Hello Fiona.

FIONA LEWIN: Hello James. I'm Fiona Lewin and I'm the Senior

Collections and House Officer here at the Workhouse and

Infirmary in Southwell, or Southwell as the locals like to

call it.

JAMES GRASBY : Fiona, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've come

up a leaf-lined lane through this what looks like an

ornamental garden and in the background this great Georgian

building.

FIONA LEWIN: It would have felt very desperate actually if you

were stood in this spot 200 years ago. People who came here

were rock-bottom destitute. Imagine yourself walking up this

path not quite knowing what's going to happen to you but

knowing that your future could be quite bleak here.

JAMES GRASBY : Fiona, history is clearly woven out of documents

and places, tangible places and this great building has now

become really a monument, a memorial to people whose lives

could have vanished into oblivion.

FIONA LEWIN: Yes, it really does stand as a testament to the

probably thousands of people who would have lived in this

building and buildings like it all up and down the country. And

many more of us can trace our family history back to

institutions like this as opposed to the grand country

houses unfortunately.

But by the end of the day James, you'll have a much clearer idea

of the types of people who lived in the Workhouse. To begin with

for your tour, we're going to discover what it would have been

like for you as a single man coming to the Workhouse back

then. So we're going to whiz you back to 1871, which is a census

year. So we know there was an inmate called William Antcliffe,

and you're going to be him.

JAMES GRASBY : Fiona, I'll be pleased to get out of this rain,

but did you say an inmate?

FIONA LEWIN: That's what you'd be known as when you arrived at

the Workhouse. So I'm going to take you around now to the

entrance where the paupers arrived. I'm going to go and

take you to meet the Master who in 1871, was a man called George

Shaw.

JAMES GRASBY : I feel a heavy feeling coming over me.

FIONA LEWIN: That's probably fair, yes.

JAMES GRASBY : Fiona, I think I can hear him coming.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: Porter, Porter. Where is that man?

Who are you?

JAMES GRASBY : Good morning, George. I'm William- George Ma-

Master? I'm so sorry, Master.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: Why are you here?

JAMES GRASBY : Fiona, help me out. Why am I here?

FIONA LEWIN: Erm, you've got no work and nowhere to go.

JAMES GRASBY : Mr Shaw, Master, I've got no work and I've got

nowhere to go.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: And what authority have you got, if any,

to come here?

JAMES GRASBY : Master, I've been to see the Relieving Officer and

he's asked me to come here to ask for your help.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: You people. You people. How old are you?

JAMES GRASBY : Master, I'm 51.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: What skills, if any, have you got?

FIONA LEWIN: Farm hand.

JAMES GRASBY : Farm hand. I'm a farm hand.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: Why are you not working at the moment?

JAMES GRASBY : Master, there's no more work on the fields for

me this year.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: My God, you have lice in your hair. You will

have your head shaven and you will be bathed. You will have a

medical inspection to make sure that you're not bringing any

diseases into my Workhouse.

JAMES GRASBY : It is astonishing, isn't it? The

sudden institutionalisation of an individual from walking in

having no work, to suddenly being treated like a criminal.

FIONA LEWIN: It's a loss of freedom and a strict regime as

soon as you enter the Workhouse.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: It's Antcliffe, isn't it?

JAMES GRASBY : Antcliffe it is, Master, yes it is.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: You are going to convert this rope into

this oakum. You do it. With your fingernails, and you pick each

thread and put it in the bin.

I will see you later.

JAMES GRASBY : What is in front of me is a natural fibre cable.

It is about four to five inches across. It's full of tar, and

quite honestly, with a fingernail, it is impenetrable.

And with my already creaky old hands, I don't think I'm going

to get very far with this. Fiona, what am I doing? I've

been set this dreary task.

FIONA LEWIN: Workhouse inmates and even prison inmates would

have done this task and you'd be doing this potentially for hours

on end. And it might ruin your hands for when you wanted to go

back into the farm work, so not a very pleasant task.

The Workhouses sold the end product of the oakum back to the

shipyards for caulking the boards of the ship and that's

where the phrase'money for old rope' comes from. You don't get

to keep any money all you receive is a roof over your head

and three meals a day.

JAMES GRASBY : And would I be doing it normally in a room full

of other people doing the same thing, would there be some

conviviality at least that you might be talking to people that.

FIONA LEWIN: Could well be the case but you'd be looking out

for the master coming to check on you.

JAMES GRASBY : Because if I was chatting and I guess the master

might come over.

Master.

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: How are you getting on, Antcliff?

JAMES GRASBY : What is the likelihood, Master, of having

something to eat? Or indeed having...

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: You eat... ...

JAMES GRASBY : having the temperature raised a little bit?

MASTER OF THE HOUSE: If you're not warm enough, work harder.

JAMES GRASBY : Right.

I have to say, it's good to see the back of him. What a

formidable and domineering character he is.

FIONA LEWIN: If you just want to come down these steps, we're

going to come out into this yard.

This is the exercise yard that we're in now. You can see in the

corner we've got the privies, but what I really wanted to show

you was this windowsill over here.

JAMES GRASBY : You brought me up to the wall of the principal

facade of the building. Just adjacent to this casement window

I can see some marks on the wall. What's this about?

FIONA LEWIN: So this is one of the best records we've got left

of the individuals who were at the Workhouse. Can you see this

grid?

JAMES GRASBY : Oh yes I can.

FIONA LEWIN: Yes, it's not immediately obvious what it is.

However, when we get a shadow cast off of the windowsill, it

creates a vertical line and intersects this grid here.

JAMES GRASBY : It's a sundial.

FIONA LEWIN: The inmates wouldn't know what time it was.

They would be told what to do and when. Maybe there'd be a

bell. But as part of wanting to take some agency back for

themselves, they've created their own sundials. They must

have done a lot of calculations for that.

It also had a lot of risk with it, because if they'd been

caught doing this, it would have been quite a severe punishment.

You can also see at the other end of this windowsill, we have

a second sundial here as well. And this one is for the

afternoon.

And it's a really special moment, very poignant, I think.

On days when it is sunny, when we can see that shadow, to think

that people were stood here like that maybe 200 years ago,

certainly over 100 years ago, trying to work out a simple

thing like what time of day it was, is something really quite

special.

JAMES GRASBY : That is extraordinary.

With the inevitable rhythm of the sun through the skies, the

same today as it was when those marks were made. That's very

poignant.

FIONA LEWIN: It really shows the intelligence and the

resourcefulness of the inmates that were here.

JAMES GRASBY : Time goes very slow when you're having a dreary

time, doesn't it drag? This has echoes and recalls prison life

to me.

FIONA LEWIN: You can definitely see how it felt like that to

some inmates at times.

STEVEN KING: This is about the poor breeding, it's about the

poor failing to work when they could. And suddenly there's a

narrative of the need for control and containment and

restraint, and that's going to be achieved through institutions

like the Southwell Workhouse.

I'm Steve King, Professor of Economic And Social History at

Nottingham Trent University.

Southwell Workhouse was the brainchild of the Reverend John

Becher. So he's Anglo-Irish, he arrives in 1792 into Southwell.

And he gets very early into this question of poor relief because

he's right there in the 1790s at the same time as poor relief is

spiralling out of control because of harvest failure and

Napoleonic wars.

He rapidly sees a systemic problem in the management of

poor people and that systemic problem is that they're always

increasing in number and the bills are always increasing.

It's his idea to found the Workhouse at Upton, which is now

Southwell Workhouse in 1824. This was all about two things.

First of all, saving money. And the second thing was about the

moral control of poor people.

The intent of the Poor Law was to educate children not to

become like the parents that generated them.

The new Poor Law workhouses often involve educational

spaces, and initially education is carried out in many places by

more literate paupers than the people they're teaching. But

very soon we start to get schoolmasters, and some of them

are badly qualified, some of them are well qualified. There

are plenty of scandals involving schoolmasters.

FIONA LEWIN: So you can probably hear the school children here

today. Shall we have a wander down to the classroom and have a

look?

JAMES GRASBY : Yes, please. Lead the way, Fiona.

FIONA LEWIN: And I was thinking you could be James Grasby for

the second part of our tour, because where we're going next,

into the classroom and into the women's dormitory, William

Antcliffe wouldn't have been allowed.

JAMES GRASBY : Before I leave William Antcliffe behind, what's

the end of his story, Fiona? Does he ever leave?

FIONA LEWIN: We think that he died here in 1887, aged 69. So

that means he spent the last 20 years of his life here.

JAMES GRASBY : Sad, sad story.

Happy the child whose tender years receive instruction well,

who hates the sinner's path and fears the road that leads to

hell.

FIONA LEWIN: You can see the 19th century morals and values

there, this idea that if you can train the child well, then

they'll be self-sufficient when they're older and they won't end

up back at the Workhouse as adults and falling back on the

system and costing money.

JAMES GRASBY : So reading, writing and arithmetic.

FIONA LEWIN: Yes, and also geography for the boys as well.

Not for the girls, because they're not going to require

that, but religious education for all.

JAMES GRASBY : Why would a girl not require geography?

FIONA LEWIN: I suppose in her line of work, it's not

necessary.

JAMES GRASBY : My goodness. It's possible that a child who was

admitted into the Workhouse was receiving an education which

perhaps they wouldn't have got normally outside the Workhouse.

FIONA LEWIN: From the very start, education was being

offered at a time where it wouldn't be universally

available for another 50 years.

JAMES GRASBY : What happened to the children at the end of the

school day.

FIONA LEWIN: Well, if the weather was nice, they'd likely

get to go and play outside briefly, but then it'd be

upstairs to their dormitories. Children were separated from

parents when they arrived in the Workhouse, but we know that they

would have had an opportunity to see their parents once a week on

a Sunday.

JAMES GRASBY : So fleeting, agonising glimpses and maybe

children hearing their parents not being able to see them and

these enforced separations.

FIONA LEWIN: That was a big feature for any family coming

into the Workhouse. The dilemma is, do you struggle to survive

on the outside together, or do you come into the Workhouse

knowing that you'll have shelter and food and medical care, but

you also know that you'll be segregated? It's a very

difficult choice to make.

JAMES GRASBY : We've just left that main entrance hallway.

Towards the back of the building.

FIONA LEWIN: If we stop and look through this window, we're

overlooking the men's work yard and straight in front of us is

one of the features of Becher's original design, which is this

small infirmary.

Inevitably, people are going to need medical care, particularly

the aged and infirm, and that's what the infirmary originally

was for. And again, that is quite forward-thinking because

the Labouring classes at this time would have really struggled

to afford their own medical care.

STEVEN KING: John Becher is ahead of his time. Becher has

basically founded a regime and built a Workhouse that looks

like the majority of new Poor Law workhouses will become after

1834. You have both building that is fit for purpose and a

whole regime which is all about dissuading people from claiming

relief where they could stand on their own two feet.

Becher also had a sort of more compassionate side. A Workhouse

might also be the best place for the truly old, truly sick. So

this sense of the 1834 Poor Law, both as a relatively flexible,

compassionate place, a receptacle for those who

genuinely needed it, and as a form of discipline for those who

didn't.

FILM EXTRACT: What's your name, boy? Oliver Twist. What? Who

gave you that name? I did, sir. You see, I names my orphans

according to a little invention of me own.

STEVEN KING: I think Oliver Twist and other contemporary

representations became very, very etched onto the

contemporary public imagination. But these things are not

representative in terms of medical care, clothing, diet,

education, in terms of all of those things. There is no doubt

at all in my mind, based upon my research, the people in the

Workhouse were better served in the Workhouse than they would

have been outside.

JAMES GRASBY : So Fiona, when did the Workhouse finally close?

FIONA LEWIN: Well, strictly speaking, that was when the Poor

Law ended in 1929, and they became known as Public

Assistance Institutions, and were then administered by the

local authority. This particular Workhouse was given a different

name in the early 20th century.

The earliest reference we can find to it is 1904, when the

guardians chose the name Greet House, named after the nearby

river Greet. This meant that for babies being born on site and

for people dying here, their birth and death certificates

would have that name, Greet House, instead of the feared

Workhouse term.

JAMES GRASBY : What you're suggesting is that stigma

prevailed for a long time about having the Workhouse in your

history.

FIONA LEWIN: The deterrent system that we talked about,

from the 19th century, it was done so well that that

reputation persisted into the 20th century. And even now, on

the edge of living memory, there are people today who can

remember the Workhouse system and still feel that stigma

today.

James, there's one more thing I want to show you.

I'm taking you to see one of the dormitories we heard about

earlier, and it's actually one that the aged and infirm women

would have used in the 1800s.

JAMES GRASBY : So we've come to the end of a corridor, past a

little partition through a door.

FIONA LEWIN: And you'll see it looks a little bit different

now.

JAMES GRASBY : Fiona, I was not expecting this.

It's a bedsit, with a pretty straightforward gas stove, with

a little sideboard with a mincing machine, a surface to

prepare food. There's a table with a teapot laid for tea, and

a row of beds, one, two, three, four, five. Five iron frame

beds. It's not a 70s bedsit.

FIONA LEWIN: That is absolutely what it is.

JAMES GRASBY : What's it doing here, Fiona?

FIONA LEWIN: Even after the Workhouse era had ended, this

building was still used to accommodate homeless families

whilst they were waiting for food. One of the last residents

was here as late as 1977 which is why you see the room as it

is.

JAMES GRASBY : This is within my living memory, my experience, so

I presume that there are people still alive who lived here.

FIONA LEWIN: We're actually in touch with some people who have

lived in these rooms.

So today James we have Mr Perkins who's come to meet you

to tell you about his story of when he used to live in one of

these rooms.

JAMES GRASBY : Really?

FIONA LEWIN: Michael, thank you very much for coming today. Can

I introduce you to James?

JAMES GRASBY : How do you do, Mr Perkins? It's a pleasure to meet

you.

MR PERKINS: And you too.

JAMES GRASBY : Tell me a little bit about the time that you

arrived here and the age you were at.

MR PERKINS: I would have been here with my mother and five or

six of my siblings when I was four years old, because I

believe my mother was struggling because my father was in prison.

I remember being here in this room. There was no heating.

There was only, as I remember, two beds.

JAMES GRASBY : Do you recall how long you were here for?

MR PERKINS: Probably months. It would have been November because

there'd been a big bonfire the night before. I spent my time

collecting the spent fireworks, which I found quite amusing.

JAMES GRASBY : And it was one room living, really. I mean,

everything happened in here by the look of it. You slept, you

cooked.

MR PERKINS: Yeah.

JAMES GRASBY : And tell me, you said there were two beds for how

many of you?

MR PERKINS: Six of us. Six children and my mother.

JAMES GRASBY : And your bed was a pretty primitive affair.

MR PERKINS: Yes, mine was the two chairs with an overcoat over

me. It was more comfortable than sleeping on the floor. It was

just a little bit softer.

JAMES GRASBY : It was barely enough in hindsight, do you

feel?

MR PERKINS: Yes, I do, but I had to make do with it. I do

remember being very hungry.

On one occasion I was so hungry... I ventured out of the

door and went down these stone steps, turned right at the

bottom, opening the door into the kitchen. There was nobody in

there. And of course, with me being so small, I was reaching

up onto the top of the work surfaces, exploring, trying to

find something to eat.

But unfortunately, I couldn't find anything. I went out,

closed the door and... Climbed the stairs back up to the room,

still very cold and very hungry.

JAMES GRASBY : You were very little at the time?

MR PERKINS: Yes.

JAMES GRASBY : And in hindsight, how do you look back at that

time you spent here?

MR PERKINS: It gave us a roof over our heads. Unfortunately,

the onward move took me into care and then on to being

fostered.

JAMES GRASBY : When you walked through the same door just a

moment ago, I see a sparkly-eyed man. How were things subsequent

to your time here?

MR PERKINS: I like to think that I succeeded quite well. I went

on to be quite successful in the print trade.

I've also run a pub for seven years with my wife and retired

on my 65th birthday and I'm living quite a comfortable life

now and enjoyable.

JAMES GRASBY : Wonderful. It's been an absolute pleasure to

meet you here and thank you very much for sharing your story.

MR PERKINS: My pleasure.

JAMES GRASBY : It's lovely of you.

MR PERKINS: Thank you.

JAMES GRASBY : Thank you very much.

Fiona, that was extraordinary. Extraordinary to hear that

story. It's a very powerful thing, isn't it?

FIONA LEWIN: It's always a special moment to meet anyone

with a connection here and, like you say, to stand in the room

with a person who's actually lived here. We do have a number

of visitors who are local, who have connections here, and even

staff and volunteers as well. So I've actually discovered my own

personal connection.

JAMES GRASBY : Have you?

FIONA LEWIN: Through using our birth and death register in our

collection here, combined with the 1921 census, I have found

distant cousins of mine who lived and eventually died here.

So it can be surprising just how many of us have got that

personal connection to Workhouse history.

JAMES GRASBY : I mean what you're saying and what you've

explained to me is this great building is not just an

architectural monument to an era in our history but it is a nexus

sort of meeting point for historians, family historians,

for real people and even members of staff to find deep

connections not only with a place but to other people in

their family lines or other people who have been associated

with you in history.

That's extraordinary. What a wonderful, inspiring story.

FIONA LEWIN: Well, James, thank you very much for coming along

today and it's been a pleasure to show you around the

Workhouse.

JAMES GRASBY : It's been an absolute delight. I've been

bowled over not only by the place but by the very emotional,

deep stories and deeply rooted histories here. It's an

extraordinary place. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Back When. You can

send us your ratings and reviews if you'd like. For now, from me,

James Grasby.