Document One - Bridget Kelpin's Letter

This is a witness statement given by a 12-year-old girl during an inquiry into the conduct of the workhouse staff in the Bradford Workhouse.

Bridget says,

I am nearly twelve years old. I am in the first class of the Girls School, I am often at the head of it. I have been in the School going on six years. I’ve been there all the time that Miss Perkins has been there. School opens at half past eight o’clock in the morning. School shuts up at five o’clock. Miss Perkins comes at half past eight o’clock, and rings the bell for us, at ten o’clock we go out to play for half an hour, and then in again before dinner. We dine at twelve o’clock and then into School about half past one o’clock. We get out a little bit sometimes before School breaks up for the day – Sometimes Mary Ryan teaches the Girls and sometimes I teach – as a general rule Miss Perkins is in the School almost always. None of the women of the house come out to look after us. Miss Perkins does all the School work. If the girls are naughty they are put for fifteen minutes or so in what we call the black hole, this is a little room near the school where the stores are kept, there is no window in it, it is a dark room – Sometimes one child and sometimes two are put in together. The Girls are never struck. I never saw a Girl struck. There never was a cane in the School. If any body says the children are caned it would not be true. I never saw a child caned, nor ever heard of such a thing. Our meals are never taken from us as a punishment. I am sometimes xxxx employed in the Kitchen that is on Mondays and Tuesdays, on other days I am in School, and I knit and sew. We keep our own rooms in order, we wash them and make the beds. I never saw Miss Perkins strike a girl. I never heard of a Girl being flogged. I know the Inspector of Schools, we are all in School when he comes. We knit and sew after five o’clock until six. We go to tea at six o’clock. We are fifteen minutes at tea, and then we play a bit, and then we come in and knit and sew. The little girls go to bed about seven o’clock and the big girls at eight o’clock.
Signed Bridget Kelpin

« Return to Going to School in the Workhouse

Children to read the letter in pairs underlining anything they are unsure about. Then read it through as a class sentence by sentence and discuss any words/terms or phrases they are unfamiliar with as we go through it.

Then read it through again all the way through to enable the children to make more sense of it as a whole.

  • What does it tell us about the children’s experience of school? Underline any sentences or phrases (in a different colour) that tell us about their day.

Children then to devise a timetable showing what the children do through the day using the letter as a source of information. A writing frame based on the chart below could be provided for Lower ability children.

For higher ability children they could devise a chart to compare these children’s experiences with what they would be doing on a typical school day. The children could then compare this to the timetable from St Marylebone, London (www.workhouse.org) .

  • Why were the timetables for boys and girls different?

Are there any questions you would like to ask Bridget?