Torquay’s Other History: the Newton Abbot Union Institution

By Kevin Dixon, on Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Workhouse: Workhouse buildings, such as the one in Newton Abbot, were then widely re-used in the National Health Service

The Poor Laws were a system of relief that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws. The 1834 New Poor Law altered the system from one which was administered haphazardly at a local parish level to a highly centralised system which encouraged the large scale development of Workhouses by Poor Law Unions.

A Workhouse was a place where those unable to support themselves could go to live and work. The Newton Abbot Poor Law Union was formed in 1836 and a Workhouse was built in 1837 in East Street. It was proposed to accommodate 350 inmates and its remit included the Borough of Torquay.

Workhouses were not pleasant places to be, and they were made deliberately unwelcoming and harsh. Indeed, there had been an abuse scandal at Newton Abbot Workhouse in 1894.

In October 1928 correspondents from the Torquay Times visited, what was by then known as, the Newton Abbot Union Institution – the term Workhouse had by then become tainted.

In their subsequent report they seemed to recognise that many ‘inmates’ were not in the Workhouse through choice

Driven by dire necessity, all sorts of and conditions of people enter the portal of the institution, where there are more inmates today than previously, owing principally to the lack of employment in the country.

Yet, they reflected society’s view that the very poor should be punished as well as supported:

By a good many people a pauper is regarded with feelings akin to repulsion rather than a subject of commiseration. (The) pauper suffers in a general sense for the improvidence of which he has been guilty, exactly as a criminal expiates his wrong doing behind bars.

It may be worth bearing in mind that the Institution’s staff knew that they were due for a visit. However, the correspondents reported that:

The institution under notice is commodious, scrupulously clean and distinctly hygienic in every way. The people inside the House are so looked after that, if it be true that “cleanliness is next to Godliness”, every one of the inmates will ultimately be found in Heaven!

The food they are supplied is wholesome… The work they have to perform daily (those who are capable of undertaking any), could not by any stretch of the imagination be styled arduous – in reality it is only exercise – the diet is quite ample.

Regardless of the diet and cleanliness, these were still ‘inmates’ of an institution and their freedom was tightly restricted:

What hurts the bulk of the inmates (and the fact is ever present in their minds) is the confinement. There are some inmates who very rarely, if ever, go outside the walls, and this habit breeds a very uneven, cantankerous temperament, and as often or not, they are soon ostracised buy their former chums.

The effects produced by the environment associated with a workhouse cannot honestly, in the main, be said to be conducive to health, especially during the winter months, when the inmates are prevented from rambling in the grounds and enjoying the fresh air which has such a stimulating influence.

Moreover, to not a few of the inmates, the penned-up process is distinctly detrimental to their well being. With some of them melancholia is engendered, and try as they may, they are incapable of shaking it off, and eventually become anything but normal. The tempers of others become deranged, irritability forming the most conspicuous phase in their character.

Workhouses were only officially abolished by the British Local Government Act of 1929 but many persisted into the 1940s. The remaining responsibility for the Poor Law was given to local authorities before its final abolition in 1948. Workhouse buildings, such as the one in Newton Abbot, were then widely re-used in the National Health Service.