Sophia Heathfield of Hawnes, Bedfordshire: Punishment Victim or Victor?

Punishing paupers? Control, discipline and mental health in the Southwell workhouse (1836–71)

“…Such a reading would be supported by James's recent work on the nature of agency in the Ampthill (Bedfordshire) workhouse in a similar period to the one studied here. 77 It is also notable in the particular case of Southwell that we do not discover, as it were by accident, unrecorded punishments through the correspondence between paupers or their advocates and the central authorities. In this reading, on most days in most years officials were unable or unwilling to confront any or most of the behaviour that could have resulted in paupers being labelled disorderly or refractory under the strict intent of the New Poor Law.…”

Fragments of Fury? Lunacy, Agency, and Contestation in the Great Yarmouth Workhouse, 1890s–1900s

“…It is perhaps for this reason that while scandals over the punishment of individual paupers who broke workhouse rules can be found and dissected, what is remarkable is how few offences that could be punished actually were. 13 These are important observations, but in empirical terms our understanding of the detail of workhouse experiences, particularly for those who spent long periods of time as inmates, is based upon perspectives from a remarkably small collection of poor law data. In this context, our knowledge of one particular group of Victorian inmatesthe lunatic poor who were placed into workhouses or returned there from asylumsis particularly flimsy.…”