Birth Place Workhouse?

[vallee]

must say I was surprised to see a couple of people on this census say they were born in a Workhouse ???
Is this unusual?
http://search.ancestry.co.uk/iexec/?htx=view&r=5538&dbid=7619&iid=LNDRG10_649_653-0530&fn=Alfred&ln=Kemp&st=r&ssrc=pt_t6737403_p-1235603740_kpidz0q3d-1235603740z0q26pgz0q3d32768z0q26pgPLz0q3dpid&pid=5556964

[Finbar]

Surprisingly common, Vallee.
This link (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,346724.0.html) may be of help.

[vallee]

hello and thanks Finbar
I am sorry but I didn't explain myself well ,what I meant was why would anybody describe themselves to a enumerator as being born in a Workhouse ??? why not just say the area ???

[Finbar]

Hard to say, at a distance of 100 years or more Vallee, but perhaps they took the request for their birthplace too literally, or maybe they were anxious to show they were not ashamed of their origins.

[Kit]

I'd say they answered literally.

Where were you born?
In a workhouse.
Where was the workhouse? or What county?
Kent.

If the people involved had never filled in their own census they may not have realised they could just say Kent.

[ElizabethHerts]

My great-great-grandfather's birth certificate states that he was born at Headley Workhouse in Hampshire. His father was the Master/Governor of the Workhouse!

[vallee]

thanks everyone thats the first census I have seen where it says that, mind you one says occupation Tramp and it looks like they were living under a Railway Arch ?????????
Poor things.
Alfred Kemp is I think my rellie it says he is a Shore Raker ??? have been googling but not made much sense any ideas ??? thanks

[Rachel]

Shore Raker ??? have been googling but not made much sense any ideas ??? thanks



Beach Comber ?

[Finbar]

Did the Census entry relate to London, or another town with a busy river, Vallee?

Unsentimental Journeys; or Byways of the Modern Babylon, by James Greenwood, 1867

No matter the weather-blazing July or bleak December-there they are to be found as sure as the retreating tide, the same old faces, in the same squalid rags, from seven to seventy, raking their daily bread from the feculent shore of the Thames from Chelsea to the Pool. Gaunt, old-fashioned children, stalwart, brawny men, tottering old women, each may be seen daily battling with the rising river for a crust.

[Rachel]

Looks like it's the same as Mudlark

'A sewer cleaner or riverbank scavenger'

[vallee]

its in Lambeth, Waterloo Road, Finbar and thanks for that how very very sad, what on earth would they have found ??
Thanks too Rachel makes some sense now poor thing his mother moved in with another man and it looks like her two children were chucked out.

[Finbar]

The full article relating to shore rakers and mudlarks can be found here (http://www.victorianlondon.org/professions/mudlarks.htm), Vallee.
(Fourth item down on page.)

[vallee]

what a fascinating site thanks for that Finbar have saved it to my favourites.

[Olde Crone]

Oooh, as a child I had a Victorian novel called The Mudlarks - I think a film was made of it?

I cried myself sick over this book!

We talk about being poor, nowadays but we have no idea. Remember that scavenging was BETTER than being in the workhouse.....

OC

[vallee]

yes OC suppose so but if it was cannot imagine what the workhouse was like ????????????? even though I have read lots about them it must have been a lot worse.

[Rachel]

Oh dear
Gt Gt Gran, Lavinia, was in the Union Workhouse, Westminster ~ 1901 and 1911 and died there shortly after the census.

I often wonder whether my grandmother visited her

[alisondaviesbell]

I'm always saddened when i hear stories about work houses orphanages etc esspeccially if you know the person still had close living relatives,

i have a great great grandfather who placed his younger daughter from his 1st marrage in an orphanage for girls, she moved back into his house inbetween the death of his 2nd wife and his marrage to his 3rd wife.. i wonder where some of the orphanages used as training school?

i have another great great grandmother who died in a workhouse, when i know she had 2 sons living a stones throw away from her, where workhouses used as Hospitals? could it be that she was very ill and needed medical help?

[vallee]

they did use them as hospitals too so suppose some were patients ?

[Nell]

Workhouses had infirmaries for poor sick people and many of them became NHS hospitals.