Appendix C - The Bedford Workhouse School

Summary

One elementary school not dealt with in the above study, as it was not one open to all the children of Bedford, is the Bedford Union Workhouse School. The Poor Law Commissioners in their Report of 1834 wrote of the importance of education, and when Poor Law Unions were established following the 1834 Act, provision was made that workhouse children should receive both an elementary education and some form of industrial training.

The Bedford Poor Law Board of Guardians took over the old House of Industry, which had been built in 1794, and included school rooms, and among their first tasks set about establishing a school. A school master and mistress were appointed in 1836, but not before some dispute over what subjects should be taught. There was a strong feeling that writing should not be in the curriculum, for fear that it would make the workhouse school seem too attractive. However, the Poor Law Commissioners would not entertain such a suggestion, and writing was included with reading, arithmetic, and religious instruction. The industrial training comprised shoemaking, tailoring, and later gardening, for the boys, and dressmaking, washing and cooking, and at one time bonnet sewing and straw plaiting, for the girls.

The background of the children that the workhouse school educated is indicated by the following return, which was made in 1838.

When these children reached the age of 16 the Board of Guardians sought apprenticeships for them by advertising in local newspapers.

The rooms in which the children were taught were barely suitable for the purpose, especially as far as the girls were concerned. As early as 1846 there was a suggestion that a new school building was necessary, but nothing was actually done until 1862. Even then the decision to erect new buildings was only carried by the casting vote of the Board’s Chairman, Mr. C. L. Higgins. Two schoolrooms, with two rooms attached for industrial training, were built by Messrs. Reynolds and Sons at a cost of £654 12s 0d.

The workhouse school system seems to have worked fairly efficiently, and the report of the government inspector, whose visits began in 1843, was generally good, but there were grave disadvantages, not only for the children, who were segregated from other children, and for whom life must have been very hard, but also for the teachers.