University of Leicester
Browse
CJK RH.pdf (276.78 kB)

Punishing paupers? Control, discipline and mental health in the Southwell workhouse (1836–71)

Download (276.78 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2019-12-06, 10:10 authored by Paul Carter, Jeff James, Steven A King
This article focuses on the way that staff and guardians in the rural Nottinghamshire workhouse of Southwell sought to exert control and containment over pauper inmates. Fusing together local and central records for the period 1834–71, including locally held punishment books and correspondence at The National Archives, Kew (TNA), we argue that the notional power of the workhouse authorities was heavily shaded. Most paupers most of the time did not find their behaviour heavily and clumsily controlled. Rather, staff focused their attention in terms of detecting and punishing disorderly behaviour on a small group of long-term and often mentally ill paupers whose actions might create enmities or spiral into larger conflicts and dissent in the workhouse setting. Both inmates and those under threat of workhouse admission would have seen or heard about punishment of ‘the usual characters’. This has important implications for how we understand the intent and experience of the New Poor Law up to the formation of the Local Government Board (LGB) in 1871.

History

Citation

Rural History (2019), 30, 161–180 doi:10.1017/S095679331900013X

Author affiliation

School of History, Politics and International Relations

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Published in

Rural History

Volume

30

Issue

2

Pagination

161-180

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

issn

0956-7933

eissn

1474-0656

Acceptance date

2019-08-28

Copyright date

2019

Available date

2019-12-06

Publisher version

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/rural-history/article/punishing-paupers-control-discipline-and-mental-health-in-the-southwell-workhouse-183671/8DAB087918630ECB466D9609E938F5C7#fndtn-information

Notes

Deposited in CRIS 21/11/2019 TM

Language

en

Usage metrics

    University of Leicester Publications

    Categories

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC