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Archiver > ENG-LIVERPOOL > 2000-02 > 0949697372


From: "Judy Olsen" <>
Subject: Re: [LIV] Manchester workhouse - explain please!
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 20:49:32 +0000


Don't really know where to start!
I think you may have seen too many BBC costume dramas :)

This period was the height of the British Empire. There was a lot of wealth
about, fabulous municipal buildings, lots of goodies for the middle classes.

But all this wealth was founded on the blood sweat and tears of ordinary men
women and children. Life in the industrial north was nasty, dirty and short.
There was no state welfare, only charity. Factories were dangerous, hours
were long.

Diseases like cholera were still a real threat (as they were in the US too
of course) and life expectancy in places like Manchester and Liverpool was
as low as the poorest developing countries today.

Not content with grinding down their own people British entrepreneurs
stripped the Empire of raw materials and exploited cheap overseas labour.

The brutal truth is that just about anyone could end up in the workhouse.
There are still people alive today who experienced its horrors because the
system was still operating in the 1920s.

Your ancestor may have come from a well to do family but perhaps they had
fallen out with him. If he lost his job then he would have to rely on the
parish.

Is it any wonder that people upped and left for America??!
Judy





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