The workhouse children

BY  MIKE DARLINGTON

My maternal grandfather Thomas McDermott died in the workhouse at Bourne on 25th September 1921 and was buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard at Billingborough three days later. He worked as a groomsman and lived in a tied cottage at Sempringham. The family moved to a house in Chapel Street, Billingborough, but tragedy struck when an accident prevented him from continuing work and so it fell to my mother, then only eight years old, to help care for him in the two years before he died and as a result, she had no schooling during that time. 

Having fallen on hard times, the health of his wife, my grandmother Rebecca, deteriorated further and at the age of 49, being unable to look after them, she was taken into care with the children on Tuesday 4th October 1921. The names of Rebecca, Maggie, aged 10 and seven-year-old Sidney, were entered in the Admission and Discharge Book on the 1st week of the December Quarter 1921. Though not old, her infirmities meant that Rebecca was confined to the Old Ladies' Day Room where she was allowed supervised but infrequent visits from her daughter Maggie. If found visiting without approval, Maggie was reprimanded by the staff.

Rebecca died there in March 1925 and was also buried at Billingborough alongside her husband. My mother remembers that she did not even have a flower to lay on her grave. Sidney had just turned eleven. The following August, after an application by Cecil W Bell, Clerk to the Guardians, he was admitted to a Dr Barnardo's Home with a view to emigration for the sake of his health. Emigration however, was delayed for three years and on 14th April 1928, he and 65 other boys sailed from Liverpool aboard the SS Montrose bound for Quebec in Canada where on arrival he was boarded with a farming family in Ontario. This was the last time my mother saw her brother until the Second World War when he unexpectedly turned up on a 48-hour pass from Stranraer while serving with the Royal Canadian Navy. In retrospect, in spite of the fact that the Board of Guardians at Bourne might have reached their decision with the best of intentions, it does seem cruel to have separated two children who knew no other living relatives . . . and at such a distance as that.

The workhouse was not a welcoming place. There were three floors to the building. On the third floor were the labour ward, rest ward and a nursery ward for maternity cases. There was no electricity, only gas. Sterilized boiling water had to be carried in kettles from the kitchen and up three flights of stairs.

The food was monotonous. Teatime was the same as breakfast, 3 oz. bread for the children, 4 oz. for adults. Jam once a week on a Sunday. Mealtimes were a regimented affair. Breakfast began at 0745 hrs. The children, men and women were separated and no talking was allowed. The tables were plain washed wood, no tablecloths and the seating consisted of hard forms with no backs. There was no seating for the children however and so they always had to stand for their meals which was extremely irksome for some of the taller boys, particularly when using a knife and fork. For those who were capable, work was the order of the day immediately after breakfast. Instructions were obeyed without a murmur. The children were escorted daily by the porter to a school in the town but on Saturday mornings there was no school and they too were given cleaning jobs to do.

Only matron's rooms were carpeted. With no electricity in the place, her carpets were regularly taken to the yard and beaten whilst the floors were washed and scrubbed and dried before the carpets were put back the same day. Stairs, landings and the bedrooms of the inmates were scrubbed each week as they were plain white wood. Passages and dining rooms had stone floors that were also washed and scrubbed.

The boardroom was used for church services, two on Sundays, one for the Church of England at 10 a m and a second for the Methodists at 7 p m. On Sunday afternoons, the children had to read and remain quiet. Sometimes they would be taken for a walk by one of the staff. Occasionally they were called to the kitchen window where matron would be waiting to hand out sweets. These were a luxury.

The highlight of the year was Christmas Day when the Board of Guardians, councillors, aldermen and their ladies, came to visit. 

The master and matron at this time were Sidney and Margaret Hancock, a husband and wife team who had succeeded Alfred and Elizabeth Yates in 1910 when Mr Yates died at the age of 60. Mr Hancock died on 27th January 1915 at the age of 42 but his wife was appointed to continue as matron in sole charge. Many regarded her as a battleaxe but she was credited with making living in the workhouse more like a home. To many of the inmates, she had a heart of gold and she herself was proud of having brought hundreds of babies into the world during her 26 years there.

When she was appointed in 1910, the men had the same material for their suits, the women were all dressed alike and the children too had the same style of dress from the same material. Matron Hancock made it possible for each lady to express herself with the purchase of different materials in a variety of colours. The men were given various suitings and the children wore pretty dresses. I gather the making of the dresses was in the hands of Mary, the in-house dressmaker who was also the organist for the home.

Mrs Hancock served as matron until 1936 by which time the workhouse had been re-designated Bourne Public Assistance Institution and was also known as Wellhead House. When she retired, the Board of Guardians presented her with a large tray to mark her years of service and I have it now. It came into my possession because she became my adopted grandmother, a link that went back to the death of my grandmother Rebecca McDermott in 1925 when Matron Hancock promised to look after Maggie as if she was her own daughter.

WEDDING DAY

The wedding of Maggie McDermott at Preston in 1935. Matron Hancock is pictured on the right of the bride.

From infancy until 1956, I had always regarded Grandma Hancock as my real grandmother. The Admissions and Discharges Book records that Maggie McDermott was discharged on 12th June 1926 and in the column marked "How Discharged" it says: "Board's adopted." After being discharged, my mother went to live with Matron Hancock's mother in Preston where she later met and married my father in 1935. She will be 91 years old in March and lives in residential care. She remembers those times past with mixed feelings. It was a hard regime but she looks back on some happy memories as well as sad ones. 

After Matron Hancock retired, she took a boarding house in Scarborough before retiring fully to live in Preston. She died in the late 1950s at the age of 90 and although she had bought the space to be interred with her husband in Bourne cemetery, it was not taken up and so she was probably buried in Lancashire.

NOTE: This item was written by Mike Darlington of Crewe, Cheshire, in February 2002.
 

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