In March 1901, inmates of the Bradford Workhouse went on strike over food. But the mutiny was short-lived. Three ‘strong-looking women’ leading the protest: Annie Tolan (23), formerly a servant; Mary Brown (26), charwoman; and Margaret Mullarkey (43), charwoman, complained to the Workhouse Master about the food served for their breakfast and refused to do any work. (Yorkshire Evening Post, 28 March 1901).
Although the Workhouse Master could punish the women internally, they were treat as ‘recalcitrants’, arrested, and taken before the Bradford Stipendiary Magistrate, charged with refusing to work. Mullarkey was also charged with threatening behaviour toward the Master.
Workhouses (or ‘Bastiles’ as they were called) were places of last resort for the unemployed and their families, along with vagrants, destitute old, and infirm of all ages. Able-bodied women, such as the three arrested, formed the largest group of pauper inmates, drawn from the ranks of the unemployed, single parents, and those deserted by their husbands.
Every workhouse in England and Wales was run independently by its Board of Guardians and the food varied enormously, both in its range, quality and cooking. This became a national cause for concern and in 1900 the national Local Government Board conducted a major review of workhouse food and diet.
Their review resulted in the 1900 Workhouse Regulation (Dietaries and Accounts) Order, which designated three basic forms of diet: plain (for healthy able-bodied adults); Infirm (for disabled, but otherwise healthy adults); and Children’s (for those aged from three to fifteen). The overall aim was to reduce wastage, so instead of a standard meal for all, each inmate was served according to their ‘needs’. And men were perceived to need more food than women!
The new dietary regime was also built on the principle that it was: ‘not desirable that, if in good health, workhouse inmates should be as well fed as other members of the classes from which they come.’ (Bradford Observer, 30 March 1901)
It was a change bound to stoke resentment – and in the Bradford Workhouse the weekday diet changed radically for these able-bodied women. Instead of tea and bread and butter for their breakfast, which they enjoyed, they were now served a type of thin porridge, along with 4 to 6 oz of dry bread, with water, but no tea.
Breakfast was an important meal for all the inmates, but for able-bodied women they needed the food boost for the day ahead: typically nine or more hours of cleaning the workhouse – including on their knees scrubbing floors – or washing clothes in the laundry.
In court the Workhouse Master said that the new diet introduced, ‘composed of 3 oz oatmeal (per) 1 pint of water, (and) ½ oz treacle…’ He said the women now ‘complained of the food generally’ (Yorkshire Evening Post, 28 March 1901).
The loss of tea to drink with their breakfast was a big issue for the women. Workhouses around the country had reported the popularity of tea with women, and even the Local Government Board officially noted this. An Order from them in 1894 allowed Workhouse guardians to ‘cause dry tea, with sugar and milk, to be supplied to each of the female inmates of the workhouse’ (Higginbotham , 2012).
But tea-drinking among female workhouse inmates was not without its critics. In 1899, William Penney, of the Scottish Local Government Board, had suggested that ‘excessive tea drinking by women accounts largely for the number of pauper lunatics.’ Another inspector on the Board agreed, asserting that ‘tea-drinking, when carried to excess, may also produce … ‘hyper-excitability, sleeplessness, and nervousness.’ William Penney concluded that, ‘when these stages are reached by a poorly-nourished, confirmed tea-drinker, the boundary line of insanity is easily crossed.’ (Higginbotham , 2012, p.263).
Annie Tolan, on her new ‘plain diet’ – and after seeing others around her in the workhouse still enjoying their tea and buttered bread – told the Stipendiary Magistrate, “I could not work on that food. It is not fit for pigs … It was like skilly” (gruel). The other two women agreed. But the Magistrate, clearly unsympathetic, sent the women to gaol for seven days with hard labour.
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The 1900 Workhouse Regulation (Dietaries and Accounts) Order did at least encourage workhouses to work toward a common standard across England and Wales and to compile their own weekly menus, drawing from a range of fifty recommended dishes or ‘rations’.
In 1901, the first official workhouse cookery book was compiled by the National Training School of Cookery in an attempt to show workhouse cooks how to produce new meals to a uniform standard. These included a whole new range of savoury and sweet puddings. However, perhaps reluctant to let go of the past, it also included a recipe for workhouse gruel!
Image: workhouse.org.uk
Reference: Higginbotham, P. (2012). The Workhouse Encyclopaedia. The History Press.
