A Night in Lambeth Workhouse

This is the very same workhouse where Stephen Partleton had died 20 years earlier. Though there are significant differences; journalist James Greenwood stayed in the casuals ward, though ward is a rather grand name for an unheated cowshed with huge gaping holes in the walls and roof.

The casuals ward was for exacly that; casual visitors, low-life, tramps. It was not for parish residents who might have fallen upon hard times or become ill, or old people who had lived in the parish for years, who received better treatment as residents of the workhouse. We have no evidence that Stephen was in this part of the Workhouse. Indeed, it is much more likely that Stephen died in the Workhouse hospital.

Anyhoo, it's a harrowing read and a wonderful piece of investigative journalism! What we have is the original story from Pall Mall magazine reprinted in an American journal called 'Every Saturday' a short while later on 10 February 1866. Read on...

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