So in source B which was written after the new poor law, it is saying that several families are asking for relief which is contradicting what is being said in source A. Therefore I think source B does contradict source A fully.
- One of the reasons people objected to the new poor law is that in source C, written in 1992, it tells us that a lot of people ‘complained about the policy of sending paupers to another parish for relief.’ In source D, written in 1842, married paupers were unable to see their wives, which is going to make people object to the new poor law because people want to see their wives. Also, Charles Dickens story Oliver Twist, Dickens makes the conditions in the workhouse look probably worse than they actually are. He shows the workhouse as being a cruel place. This would make people want to object to the new poor law as well.
- Source E, written in 1840 from the minutes of the Uckfield Board of Guardians, tells us that a pauper has stated that she was being restricted to suckle her child to three times a day, which wasn’t allowed. But the board of guardians examined this and said that the statement was false. So this shows us that people accuse the workhouse of things that aren’t true. This might not be reliable because the workhouse could have made it sound like they weren’t doing any thing wrong.
Source F tells us that some rules from the new poor law haven’t worked so new ones have had to be added in, three of them being about punishments. For example, ‘common hay and rope mattresses be provided as beds for refractory wards,’
Source G tells us that the diet in the workhouse was poor and that paupers weren’t given very much to eat. They were eating off things like ‘oatmeal and split peas’.
Source E is quite reliable because it is written in 1840 and by the board of guardians which means it will be quite accurate, although they could change things so that other people hear what they want to hear. Source F is reliable because it can easily be checked to see if it is correct. Source G is also reliable because it also can be easily checked up on.
- In source D, there is a sign of the workhouse being a ‘life of horror’ because married paupers weren’t allowed to see their wives. This is cruel because if you were married, you would want to spend time with each other, not spend it away from each other. Another sign is in source F when it tells us that ‘common hay and rope mattresses be provided as beds for the refractory wards,’ This makes it sound uncomfortable and it’s not the sort of thing you would want to sleep on. In Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens, it is showing a lot of what source H is saying. For example, ‘savage beatings.’ If you watched Oliver Twist you would think that living in the workhouse would be a ‘life of horror,’ simply because of the conditions that were showed in the film. In source G the diet also makes the workhouse sound like a horrible place to be because it shows that you don’t get a lot of food in your diet.
However, in source E, one pauper said that there was a restriction on letting the mothers receive and suckle their children only three times a day, but the workhouse never put on a restriction. This is a sign that the board of guardians are caring and can understand that the mothers need to see their children when ever they want. In source B, the board of guardians took ‘Thomas Wren who has a wife and seven children into the House and relieve the wife and family out of the House and to offer William Horsecroft, George Hemsley and Richard Medhurst a small relief in flour by way of loan.’ This shows that the board of guardians are again caring.
We can trust all of this evidence, except source H and the Oliver Twist film, because they were all written by the Uckfield Board of Guardians at the same time, between 1835 and 1842. We can’t trust source H because it is written in 1991 so it can’t be very reliable because it could be written based on the film Oliver Twist which we can’t say is reliable either because when it was made, nobody was actually from the workhouse back in 1935.
To conclude, I think that the workhouse wasn’t a ‘life of horror’ because some of the evidence to say that it was, was written in the 1990’s and the film was made in the 20th century so it can’t be completely trusted. However the evidence to say that it wasn’t a life of horror is written between 1835 and 1842 so it is very reliable.
