Children’s Clothing in the Workhouse
Suitable for: Key stage 2
Time period: Victorians 1850-1901
Curriculum topics: Childhood through time, Local Histories, Victorians
Download: Lesson pack
This lesson explores source material in the form of letters written by Paupers which were sent to the Poor Law Commission in London, generally complaining about the treatment and conditions the pauper children were enduring. The pupils will analyse the individual letters to gain an understanding of some of the things which happened to children during this time.
This lesson focuses on clothing and is part of a series of lessons which include a focus on Southwell Workhouse followed by two other lessons focussing on schooling and food.
This lesson will support an exploration of the Victorians where it is either your post 1066 unit or linked to local history, for example if you have a local workhouse that is now a hospital or converted for other uses. It could also be used if you were exploring children’s experiences through history.
Tasks
Children to complete the table below as you read through the letters, look at the image and compare this to a reading from Street Child. The children should use quotes from the sources to support them.
| Children’s clothing in the workhouse | ||
| Source | What we can learn from the sources | What we can infer from the sources |
| Letter One | ||
| Letter Two | ||
| Southwell Union Guardians Quote | ||
| Street Child | ||
Letter One
Discuss as a class and perhaps focus on the following vocabulary:
Wretched, Preceding, Stockings, Sufficiently
Focus points to discuss:
- What impression are we given from the use of the word wretched to describe the state of the bedding?
- How long is the 20th of February after Christmas?
- What does this tell us about the amount of time they had to wait for Stockings?
- How do you think the children felt waiting this long? If you had to wait this long, do you think you would have notice?
- What do you think it meant by ‘having no appointed clothing on their own…but wearing such as they could get’? Why do you think they didn’t have clothing of their own?
- What impression can we make about the time of year and the weather? How might not being sufficiently clothed at this time of year be an issue?
- Why should they not attend church? What can we imply about the importance of going to church and what they would wear there?
Letter Two
Discuss as a class and perhaps focus on the following vocabulary:
Frocks, Pinafores, Deficient, Middling supply, Chilblains, Itch and scald head
Focus points to discuss:
- How is this different to the experience in the first letter?
- How is this similar to the experience in the first letter?
- What impression do these two letters give you about the children’s clothing?
Southwell Union Guardians Quote
- Why might they have suggested that they wear long sleeves?
- Discuss, what are drawers? Why would it be an issue that the children didn’t have any?
Get the children to think about the building, could show them the building plan of Southwell. The children may need directing to the temperature of the building.
Street Child by Berlie Doherty
- Is the impression given from the book the same as that from the letters? How so? Is anything different?
Final discussion point:
- From the sources examined today, what impression have we been given about children’s clothing in the workhouse?
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Suitable for: Key stage 2
Time period: Victorians 1850-1901
Curriculum topics: Childhood through time, Local Histories, Victorians
Download: Lesson pack
Food Glorious Food
What was food like for a child in the Victorian workhouse?
Going to School in the Workhouse
How was school for pauper children different, and what was the same?