Residents of East Park Estate are to unveil a memorial to more than 4,000 men, women and children who died in Eastville’s notorious Workhouse between 1851 and 1895 and were buried in unmarked paupers’ graves in what is now Rosemary Green.
A six foot Welsh slate standing stone, carved by local stone mason and sculptor Matthew Billington using designs from pupils of May Park Primary School, will be erected on the disused burial ground which has remained unmarked for over 150 years. It is adjacent to the site of the Workhouse, which is now largely covered by housing and a primary school.
The standing stone is the centrepiece of a project which will eventually include a memorial garden and a historical plaque at the original gates of Eastville Workhouse at 100 Fishponds Road, now the entrance to the new East Trees Health Centre.
Over the last year, Eastville residents have raised nearly £10,000 to commission the standing stone, working with members of Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG) who initiated an investigation into the pauper burial ground in 2012 and are publishing 100 Fishponds Rd: Life and death in Victorian Workhouse to coincide with the unveiling. After three years of painstaking research, they have collated the names and details of 4,084 men, women and children who died in the Workhouse and were buried in Rosemary Green. They also discovered that another 118 bodies were acquired by the medical school for dissection. They too are remembered on the memorial.
Among those taking part in the unveiling ceremony will be residents of East Park Estate who have campaigned for many years to improve facilities for children in the area, family historians whose ancestors were buried in Rosemary Green, and pupils from May Park Primary School who have contributed to the project.
Funding for the memorial project has principally come from the John James Bristol Foundation, and the Greater Fishponds Neighbourhood Partnership with contributions from Living Easton history group, local branches of the National Union of Journalists and the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union, and relatives of the community activist, the late Hannah Purbrick.
In 2012 some radical historians poring over old maps of East Bristol came across a disused burial ground at Rosemary Green close to the site of Eastville Workhouse at 100 Fishponds Rd. Over the following years a team of local researchers revealed that more than 4,000 men, women and children, inmates of Eastville Workhouse, were interred in unmarked graves in Rosemary Green from 1851-1895. This book is a summary of their research and a history of Eastville Workhouse in the Victorian period. It also forms part of a community history project to both name the forgotten paupers of Rosemary Green and to memorialise them.
Eastville Workhouse, constructed by Clifton Poor Law Union in 1847, was the largest workhouse in the Bristol area. Housing over a thousand inmates, it was an institution produced by the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence this book looks at what life in the Victorian workhouse was like, who the inmates were and how they were treated. It considers their life chances once they entered the institution and what happened to them after they passed away.
182 pages. 39 graphs and illustrations.
There is a launch event for this pamphlet on Thursday 19th November 2015.
On this site over 4000 men, women and children who died in Eastville Workhouse, known as 100 Fishponds Road, were buried in unmarked graves. A further 118 were given to the medical school. This memorial stands in regognition of all who lived and died in the workhouse.
In 2015, the Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group unveiled a memorial for the 4,084 paupers buried in a mass grave at Rosemary Green. We follow them and the Bristol Radical History Group's efforts to correct this historical wrong, and to bring light upon the ever-continuing assault on working people's conditions.
You are on the site of Eastville Workhouse, which opened its doors in 1847. In the 1930s it became an old people’s home and was finally demolished in 1972.
A map of Eastville Workhouse from 1900.Eastville Workhouse from the air in 1967. Follow the drive way from the front of the main workhouse building down to the left where it joins Fishponds Road; this is the where the ‘100 Fishponds Road’ memorial plaque is. The Rosemary Green Burial Ground Memorial is just out of frame, about half way up on the right hand side of the photograph.Eastville Workhouse during demolition, 1972.
Eastville Workhouse Plaque
The plaque is situated on what is now the pedestrian entrance to East Trees Health Centre. This was the entrance to the driveway that led up to the main workhouse buildings. The new medical center was opened in 2016. The imposing Maytrees flats are built on the site of the workhouse’s front lawn and the workhouse itself stood between Fountaine Court, Juniper Court and Caraway Gardens.
100 Fishponds Rd, Pedestrian Entrance to East Trees Health Centre, Bristol BS5 6BF, Lat. 51.4705661, Long. -2.5628071.
The feared address: 100 Fishponds Road.Eastville Workhouse at twilight probably in the late 60s a few years before demolition. If you walk across Fishponds Road and find Argyle Street you can see where this photograph was taken from. Maytrees Flats now stand on the site of the workhouse’s (by then an old people’s home) front lawn. Photograph found in Bristol Central Reference Library.If you head up the hill past the medical center and Maytrees flats the original workhouse retaining wall is still visible today on your right.
The Rosemary Green Burial Ground Memorial
On this site between 1855 and 1895 over 4000 men, women and children who died in Eastville Workhouse, known as 100 Fishponds Road, were buried in unmarked graves. A further 118 were given to the medical school. This memorial stands in recognition of all who lived and died in the workhouse.
Rosemary Green, looking down towards the burial ground and Greenbank View from Rosemary Lane. The workhouse was to the left and the Rosemary Green Burial Ground Memorial is behind the far goal post. (note that a new playground has been built at the top of the hill since this photograph was taken)
The memorial was carved from Welsh slate by local sculpture Matthew Billington and was unveiled on Monday 16th November 2015.
Rosemary Green, at the Greenbank View end, BS5 6LG Lat. 51.469918, Long. -2.557132.
100 Fishponds Rd, Pedestrian Entrance to East Trees Health Centre, Bristol BS5 6BF
As part of the ongoing Eastville Workhouse history project a cast aluminium, painted plaque by local artist Mike Baker will be unveiled on the surviving gates to the workhouse at 100 Fishponds Rd. Over eighty years thousands of men, women and children passed through these gates, driven by poverty, great age or ill-health. Families were separated, endured hard labour and a punitive regime. The plaque shows a relief of Eastville Workhouse and Fishponds Rd in the late Victorian period and marks the location of the institution which remains a dark, but important, symbol in the history of East Bristol.
The Kingfisher Cafe, 8 Straits Parade, Fishponds, Bristol BS16 2LE
In 2012 some radical historians poring over old maps came across a disused burial ground at Rosemary Green close to the site of Eastville Workhouse at 100 Fishponds Rd. Over the following years a team of local researchers revealed that more than 4,000 men, women and children, inmates of Eastville Workhouse, were interred in unmarked graves in Rosemary Green from 1851-1895.
Eastville Workhouse, constructed by Clifton Poor Law Union in 1847, was the largest workhouse in the Bristol area. Housing over a thousand inmates, it was an institution produced by the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence this talk looks at what life in the Victorian workhouse was like, who the inmates were and how they were treated. It considers their life chances once they entered the institution and what happened to them after they passed away.
The book100 Fishponds Rd: Life and death in Victorian Workhouse is a summary of the research and a history of Eastville Workhouse in the Victorian period. It also forms part of a community history project to both name the forgotten paupers of Rosemary Green and to memorialise them.
Roger Ball, co-author of 100 Fishponds Rd: Life and death in a Victorian workhouse explains how a team of local researchers revealed that more than 4,000 men, women and children, inmates of Eastville Workhouse, were interred in unmarked graves in a burial ground that was forgotten for over a century.
Eastville Workhouse at twilight. A transparency probably taken in the late 60s. Photographer unknown.
Congresbury History Group, Congresbury Methodist Hall, 2 High St, Congresbury, Bristol BS49 5JA
Roger Ball, co-author of 100 Fishponds Rd: Life and death in a Victorian workhouse explains how a team of local researchers revealed that more than 4,000 men, women and children, inmates of Eastville Workhouse, were interred in unmarked graves in a burial ground that was forgotten for over a century.
Site of unmarked common graves of the remains of more than 4,000 paupers at Avonview Cemetery
In 2012 Bristol Radical History Group launched a project to research into the thousands of unmarked graves of paupers from the Eastville workhouse (at 100 Fishponds Road) who were buried in nearby Rosemary Green. In 2014 the Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group (EWMG) was formed to commemorate and memorialise the 4,084 people who lived and died in Eastville workhouse and were interred at the site between 1851 and 1895, along with another 118 inmates’ bodies which were sold to medical schools. In November 2015 EWMG unveiled a standing stone memorial at Rosemary Green to mark the burial ground and the forgotten paupers.
Unveiling of memorial at Rosemary Green pauper burial ground in November 2015
In 1972 the Eastville workhouse buildings (an elderly peoples home) were demolished in preparation for the construction of the East Park Housing Estate. Our research has shown that there was a crude disinterment of the burial ground during the demolition, with 167 boxes of large bones moved to unmarked common graves at Avonview Cemetery, St George. EWMG have always felt that the last resting place of the paupers should be marked. Thanks to donations from the EWMG, the Church of England dioceses of Gloucester and Bristol and Bristol City Council a gravestone has been designed, carved and installed by local mason Matthew Billington.
The new memorial in production thanks to the work of stone mason Matthew Billington
The unveiling ceremony will take place on Wednesday, May 8th 2019 at 1.00pm at the western end of Avonview Cemetery (off Blackswarth Road and Beaufort Road) in St George. All welcome.
Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them[1]
Introduction
One evening in 2010 some members of Bristol Radical History Group (BRHG) were poring over some old maps of Eastville and discovered a forgotten burial ground at Rosemary Green, just round the corner from where they lived. Further investigation showed that the site was in fact the burial ground for Eastville Workhouse at 100 Fishponds Road, an enormous institution that had opened in 1847 and whose buildings were demolished in 1972 to make way for the East Park housing estate.
Location of Eastville Workhouse (1902-1904)
After several years of research in Bristol Archives, BRHG members gathered details of over 4,000 men, women and children from the workhouse who had been buried in unmarked graves at the site. There was no sign or marker of Rosemary Green’s past use as the burial ground for the workhouse; it was a secluded valley used by sunbathers, dog walkers and kids playing football. In the summer of 2014, after a public meeting, Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group (EWMG) was formed with the aim of publishing the details of the forgotten paupers[2] and raising money for a permanent memorial to mark their final resting place.
Rosemary Green, the site of the Eastville Workhouse burial ground
From church graveyards to ‘workhouse dunghills’
Research into the origins of the burial ground showed that it had been the product of cost savings made by the penny-pinching Poor Law Guardians who ran the institution. A few years after the opening of Eastville Workhouse the Board of Guardians had balked at the costs of the customary practice of sending bodies of deceased paupers back to their respective parishes of origin for burial. Clifton Poor Law Union, which they oversaw, consisted of 12 parishes mostly outside Bristol city centre to the west, north and east in Gloucestershire, with Henbury and Winterbourne the most distant.[3] The Bristol Mercury reported that:
the Guardians, and through them the ratepayers, were put to considerable expense in determining where paupers were properly chargeable; an outlay was incurred… in removing the bodies to remote places.[4]
The Guardians decided instead to use a piece of waste ground next to the workhouse as a burial ground. It was not an ideal location for interments; a steep slope led down to a sewage infested stream, Coombe Brook, which regularly flooded and flowed into the nearby River Frome. However, by ordering inmates to carry shrouded bodies from the workhouse mortuary to unmarked graves dug by them in the burial ground, the Guardians were able to save money on grave-diggers, coffins and horse drawn transport to the parishes. These new burial practices were part of a wider series of measures encouraged by the 1834 Poor Law Act which aimed to reduce the cost of paupers to rate-payers and make the experience of poverty ‘disgraceful’ in life and in death.[5]
Despite reservations within the clergy in the Victorian period that burials should take place in churchyards and not in the new-fangled ‘public cemeteries’ and opposition from the public who resented paupers being buried in “workhouse dunghills” three pieces of land at Rosemary Green were consecrated in 1851, 1861 and 1868. One of the reasons for the acquiescence of the Bishop of Bristol and Gloucester, who presided over the ceremonies, was the £50 fee the church charged for each consecration; in total equivalent today to around £150,000.[6] Some Guardians even complained that this was a “scandalous and disgraceful” sum, but despite their protestations the savings still outweighed the costs, so expansions to the burial ground went ahead.[7]
Phases of consecration at Rosemary Green
‘Packed and stacked’
Over the years 1851-1895 more than 4,000 paupers were interred at Rosemary Green. Initially, at least, the unmarked burials were merely packed tightly together horizontally but as each tranche of consecrated ground became full other practices were introduced. These included returning to older parts of the burial ground and carrying out multiple vertical burials, interring bodies under the footpaths and selling bodies to medical schools for dissection. [8]At the height of a cost-cutting crusade led by the Poor Law Board in London in 1878 the Clifton Guardians made the decision not to expand the burial ground any further by consecration of new land, probably because of the cost of the fees paid to the diocese.[9] Using the aforementioned methods, several of which contravened legal guidelines brought in to deal with cholera epidemics in the 1840s, pauper bodies were ‘packed and stacked’ into multiple burials on the site until it was deemed full to bursting in 1895.
These burial practices driven by brutal cost-cutting may have been within the workhouse walls but they did not go unnoticed. In 1869 a protest meeting of ‘working men’ held on West Street in east Bristol concerning the callous treatment of paupers in the Clifton Poor Law Union stated that the Guardians:
thought nothing of enlarging their burial ground, and thought nothing of seeing the mounds sticking up, and as soon as they (the poor) cropped up they would put them there.[10]
Demolition and disinterment
One afternoon in the summer of 2015 as we were surveying Rosemary Green a local resident informed us that he had worked for the company that had demolished the workhouse buildings in 1972. Although he had not participated in the job himself he knew the Managing Director was still in charge of the company and he was sure that he would remember such a major operation. This was an exciting lead, as our researches into the demolition of the workhouse buildings had liberated no more than a couple of newspaper articles and some interesting photographs.
Demolition of 100 Fishponds Road in 1972 (Photo: Stephen Dowle)
We tracked down the company to their base in Somerset and interviewed the Managing Director and a foreman who both remembered the demolition. The company had been contracted by Bristol City Council to demolish the workhouse buildings and part of the arrangement was to clear the burial ground. This turned out to be a massive job, with excavations lasting weeks in the summer of 1972, apparently overseen by representatives from the church. The site foreman recounted that excavations with mechanical diggers turned up huge amounts of human remains in some cases buried 15 feet deep, with evidence of multiple burials. It was hard to estimate the number of bodies present as the remains were jumbles of bones, but certainly “more than a thousand and possibly thousands”. Only major bones were collected and placed in timber boxes, which were then loaded into a transit van and shipped off to a “cemetery near the Feeder Road”.[11] The foreman remembered that there appeared to be no coffins amongst the remains and that there were a number of bodies of children. It was clear that delineating individuals was impossible due to the speed and crude method for disinterment. The remaining hundreds of thousands of skeletal fragments mixed with top soil and demolition rubble were then ploughed back onto Rosemary Green raising the ground level by several feet.
The foreman’s recollections helped explain some other memories that had been collected by the workhouse project. One correspondent remembered:
Circa 1972/3 I was working at Cavenham Confectionary Greenbank Bristol. I can recall a worker who had two skulls which he had taken from the site of 100 Fishponds Road. Apparently a lot of human remains were exposed during the ground works for the new housing estate[12]
Another eye-witness, a child at the time, recalled the ‘timber boxes’, mistaking them for coffins:
As a boy living in Coombe Road I remember the site being excavated before/during the demolition of 100 Fishponds Road. I am pretty sure some of the coffins, more like planks built into boxes, were dug up and removed. We used to dig around in the rubbish and I found a broken mug with the crest of the Bristol Guardians of the Poor…We dug up clay pipes, old glass bottles and various items that were thrown out.[13]
A teacher who worked at a school adjacent to the site of the workhouse buildings remembered their demolition in 1972. Pupils from the school had been entering the building site through a hole in the fence to look for Victorian bottles that had been turned up by the excavations. Instead they returned to the school with bags full of human bones!
In autumn 2015 we applied for planning permission to site a standing stone memorial on Rosemary Green to mark the site of the unmarked graves. From our survey we were confident the memorial was situated just outside the original boundary of the burial ground and thus would not interfere with any human remains. However, the revelations of the foreman of the demolition team suggested that Rosemary Green had been significantly altered by the disinterment and that fragments of bone were scattered over a much wider area than the original consecrated ground. In fact, a few months previously, some builders working on a new house just behind the memorial had found bones and a child’s hobnailed shoe in the foundations. Sure enough, in November that year, during the excavation of a hole to install the memorial stone we found numerous small fragments of human bone which we reburied.[14] It seemed our witnesses to the demolition were right. The question was, where had the thousands of major bones been moved to?
From Rosemary Green to Avonview
Following the lead of a “cemetery near the Feeder Road” we made enquiries with the Bristol City Council cemeteries and crematoriums service based at Canford. In their archives a Register of Burials stated that 167 boxes of human remains had been recovered from the “Eastville Institution, 100 Fishponds Road” in September 1972 and deposited in three adjacent plots in a corner of nearby Avonview Cemetery in St George.[15] Excited that we had finally solved the mystery we rushed over to Avonview, and after studying the cemetery map found the ‘common graves’. These were three deep pits that had been filled with the bones of thousands of paupers, and incredibly, left unmarked once again. In fact, without the map we would never have found them. We were shocked, and one member of the group commented: “I can understand this happening in 1872, but 1972, you have got to be joking!”
Site of unmarked common graves of the remains of more than 4,000 paupers at Avonview Cemetery
Having located the final resting place of the workhouse inmates we were keen to pin down who had made the decision to sanction the removal of the human remains from unmarked burials in consecrated ground at Rosemary Green to the unmarked common graves at Avonview Cemetery. Having carefully studied the conveyance, indenture and petition documents for the consecrated ground at Rosemary Green at Bristol Archives we were confident that the dioceses of Bristol and Gloucester retained responsibility for the burial ground.[16] In fact, as late as 1902, a note had been added to one indenture clarifying this fact. It stated:
an indenture dated the 14th day of April 1851 and made between the Guardians of the Poor of the Clifton Union in the City of Bristol of the one part and the Right Reverend James Henry Lord Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol of the other part A small plot of Ground…was granted unto the said Lord Bishop and his Successors In trust that the said plot of ground should be forthwith consecrated and should for ever thereafter be separated and set apart from all profane uses and be devoted and appropriated by the said Guardians to the burial of bodies of persons who at the time of their respective deaths should be chargeable to the said Union or to any Parish comprised therein and according to the Rites and ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland And whereas the said plot of ground was duly consecrated as appears by Act of Consecration dated 24th April 1851 Now it is hereby declared that the within Conveyance shall be taken to have been made subject to the said Indenture of the 19th day of April 1851 and to the provisions for burial therein mentioned so far as relates to the small plot of ground thereby granted and the consecration thereof.[17].
Having proved that the burial ground at Rosemary Green was both consecrated and held in trust by the dioceses and checked the legal requirements for disinterring bodies it seemed reasonable to assume that the church had taken the decision to allow the removal of the remains in 1972. In January 2016 we wrote to the Bishop of Bristol asking the diocese to provide evidence for the disinterment, accept responsibility for this decision and suggesting they should mark the common graves at Avonview with a memorial. [18] Unfortunately, the responses were somewhat negative, to say the least. The Bishop claimed that:
checking the Diocesan Registry departments of both this diocese and the diocese of Gloucester has revealed nothing that connects the Church of England with the churchyard concerned. We have also heard, that no ceremony was involved at the time the remains were dug up, and secondly, that this was done by a JCB-like bulldozer. I have to say, I think it is almost inconceivable that the church would have anything to do with such an outrageous approach…this really does have the feel more like property developers who may or may not have sought the proper permissions.[19]
The Bishop continued his Pilate-like response by offering a “without prejudice” contribution to the cost of a memorial. In a subsequent letter from the Acting Archdeacon of Bristol their position was reinforced:
I am sorry to confirm, however, that we cannot locate any records (either in this diocese, or in the diocese of Gloucester) which would support the building contractors’ comment that the Church of England in any formal way ‘oversaw’ the events of 1972.
Although it is clear that the site of Rosemary Green falls within what is now the Parish of St Anne with St Mark and St Thomas, Eastville, it does not appear to have been Church land (i.e. not a churchyard for which the local Parish Priest for example, would have had any responsibility) and the Diocese would not therefore have had any legal involvement in its sale or development for housing.[20]
The denial that the burial ground at Rosemary Green was a ‘proper’ graveyard; that is, in the grounds of a church under the auspices of a ‘Parish Priest’, carried great historical irony for us. In 2016 the Church of England were denying that a “workhouse dunghill” had any status as consecrated ground. “Didn’t stop them taking over a hundred grand in consecration fees though, did it?” commented one angry member of EWMG when he read the letter. He added “Are they going to give that back?”
Whodunnit?
For many of us in EWMG the refusal of the Church of England to take full responsibility for either the burial ground or the decision to remove the thousands of pauper bodies to Avonview was very demoralising. In July 2016, with the help of local stone mason Matthew Billington, we had even presented the dioceses of Bristol and Gloucester with a detailed proposal and a design for a memorial to mark the common graves at Avonview but to no avail. Between them they offered less than a quarter of the £3,000 of the cost as a donation. Over 2015 and 2016 EWMG members and local residents had worked very hard to raise £10,000 from trade unions, local institutions and businesses to fund a memorial at Rosemary Green, a plaque to mark the location of Eastville Workhouse and projects with local schools. Why should local people have to fork out again to pay for a decision that had apparently been made by the Church of England and to a lesser degree, Bristol City Council? With the proposal stalled, plans to memorialise the mass common graves at Avonview went into hibernation for two years.
The failure to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the decision in 1972 and to memorialise the final resting place of the paupers bothered us. Despite all the years of work on the Eastville Workhouse project, it still felt incomplete. Consequently, in the autumn of 2018 it was agreed to approach the dioceses again. In the two years that had passed, the Archdeacon had retired and the Bishop had moved on. We resent the letters and proposals to the incumbents and, lo and behold, the evidence we were after finally turned up. In late October a meeting took place at Rosemary Green and Avonview Cemetery between members of EWMG and Michael Johnson the new Acting Archdeacon to discuss the proposal for a memorial. A few days after, Johnson more than doubled the donation to the memorial and crucially sent us a copy of a ‘faculty’ document from 1972, effectively a legal authorisation within the Church of England. This document sanctioned the City Engineer to carry out:
The removal of human remains from the disused burial ground at 100 Fishponds Road Bristol and the reinternment of the human remains in Plot AA at Avonview Cemetery Bristol.[21]
The person who signed off the decision to move the bodies from one unmarked burial site to another was David Charles Calcutt esq. Calcutt, a high flying establishment barrister, judge, Professor of Law and Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge was also Chancellor of the Church of England dioceses of Exeter and of Bristol from 1971-2004. Calcutt, who passed away in 2004, was described in his obituary as one who’s:
search for excellence was beyond compare, his determination was formidable, and his simple humanity was frequently unrecognised…Calcutt always had the common touch.[22]
It appears he failed to apply any of these traits to the treatment of the remains of more than 4,000 men, women and children buried at Rosemary Green, when he consigned them to nameless oblivion in a forgotten corner of Avonview Cemetery.
Putting things right…again
And so began the last stage of our project; to mark the final resting place of the forgotten inmates of Eastville Workhouse. We had started out wanting to put right the disrespect Victorian society had shown to the paupers in life and in death, and ended up having to deal with the same attitudes a century later. Three years after our shocking discovery, on May 8th 2019, The Lord Mayor, Archdeacon of the Diocese of Bristol and the Deputy Mayor joined us and relatives of those who were buried at Rosemary Green to unveil a memorial to mark the common graves. Apart from the donations from the Bristol and Gloucester dioceses (which amounted to £1,700), Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group added £500 and Bristol City Council made up the final £800. The weather during the unveiling was ‘biblical’ from start to finish, with thunder, lightning and then hail lashing down. Most of us thought it apt. However, we were left with a lingering thought: this couldn’t happen again, could it?
Biblical weather at the unveiling of the memorialMembers of Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group, the Lord Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Archdeacon of the Bristol diocese at the unveiling of the memorial in Avonview Cemetery.The newly installed memorial gravestone at Avonview Cemetery
The memorial to the mark the common graves at Avonview Cemetery (Beaufort Rd, Bristol BS5 8EN) can be found in the north western corner, between Blackswarth Road and Beaufort Road. It is marked with a red cross on the following map.
Avonview Cemetery, St George, Bristol
A shorter, more sanitised version of this article appeared in the Bristol Times section of the Bristol Post on Tuesday 28th May, 2019.
You can read more about Eastville Workhouse and the burial ground at Rosemary Green in the Bristol Radical History Group book: 100 Fishponds Rd: Life and Death in a Victorian Workhouseby Roger Ball, Di Parkin and Steve Mills (2016).
Thanks to all those in Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group who have persevered with this project over the last five years.
[1]George Eliot quoted from Pike, B. et al 100 Fishponds Rd 9:42 http://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/100-fishponds-road/. [Back...]
[5]These policies are discussed in much greater detail in Hurren, E. T. Protesting About Pauperism: Poverty, Politics and Poor Relief in Late Victorian England 1870-1900, Suffolk: Royal Historical Society, 2015. [Back...]
[6]Using the GDP per capita conversion, £50 in 1851, 1861 and 1868 was worth in 2018 £63,370, £48,070 and £42,870 respectively. “Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a UK Pound Amount, 1270 to Present,” MeasuringWorth, 2019. URL: www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/. [Back...]
[7]Bristol Times & Mirror 17 October 1868, Western Daily Press 24 October 1868 and 5 December 1868. [Back...]
[8]The practice of ‘giving’ bodies to medical schools began at Eastville workhouse in 1872 and continued until 1894. In all 118 deceased men and women suffered this fate. Ball et al, 100 Fishponds Rd pp. 171-172. [Back...]
[15]The Register of Burials for Avonview Cemetery is held at Canford Cemetery & Crematorium Office, Bristol. Dated 15 September, 1972 the plot reference numbers at Avonview Cemetery are 1458/A/Light Blue/AA, 1459/A/Light Blue/AA and 1462/A/Light Blue/AA. [Back...]
[16]Bristol Archives Refs. EP/A/22/CU/1a-c, EP/A/22/CU/2a-b, EP/A/22/CU/3a-b, 42228/1/1/1-2, 42228/1/8/1-3, St PHosp/183-5, St PHosp/190, St PHosp/194 and St PHosp/198. [Back...]
[17]Bristol Archives Reference St PHosp/198. [Back...]
[18]Letter from Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group to the Bishop of Bristol, 22 January, 2016. [Back...]
[19]Letter from Rt Revd Mike Hill (Bishop of Bristol) to Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group, 29 January, 2016. [Back...]
[20]Letter from Venerable Christine Froude (acting Archdeacon of Bristol) to Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group, 9 February, 2016. [Back...]
[21]St Thomas the Apostle, Eastville, Faculty No. 1716, 10 March, 1972. [Back...]
Elaborate funeral ceremonies became very important to middle-class Victorians, with increasingly meticulous rituals designed to mark the passing of family members. However, for the Victorian poor, things were very different. After the introduction of the 1834 Poor Law Act the customary pauper funeral, subsidised by the parish, came under government scrutiny as a financial and symbolic ‘extravagance’. Instead the need for Poor Law Unions to both save money and demonstrate disgrace in death of those who had ‘surrendered to poverty’ became paramount. This new approach was reflected in the death and burial practices within the workhouse system.
Building on continuing research into Eastville Workhouse at 100 Fishponds Rd, the unmarked pauper graves at Rosemary Green and nearby Greenbank Cemetery; this talk contrasts, in death, the treatment of the Victorian rich and poor.
In November, 2019 Louise Ryland-Epton gave an engaging talk entitled ‘By Pity and by Terror? A Contrary View of Workhouses’ at the M Shed, Bristol as part of the UWE Regional History Centre series of talks.
As I had read and examined reports on shocking victimisation, neglect, exploitation and dehumanising treatment of later workhouse inmates I was intrigued to hear about an alternative, pre 1834 Poor Law Act, workhouse erected in Westbury-on-Trym. We are all familiar with the many indignant accounts detailing punishment and deprivation that were inflicted upon pauper men, women and children across the British Isles for hundreds of years. I was interested in the earlier workhouses, and to understand the little known, and often over looked, Gilbert’s Act of 1782. Otherwise known as the Relief of the Poor Act 1782, 22 Geo.3 c.83.
Ryland-Epton’s view was that due to the parish endorsing Gilbert’s Act, the parish of Westbury-on-Trym (hereafter referred to as Westbury), decided to build a new workhouse next to the parish church to better care for the aged infirm and orphans. The new workhouse probably opened during September 1804. The speaker stated that the workhouse at Westbury-on-Trym was entirely different. One historian in the 1960s declared, ‘even today it would be unlikely for an old person in a geriatric ward to receive such good treatment’. While this may be an exaggeration, there is no doubt that the treatment of inmates at Westbury was meticulously planned and administered with the ‘comforts’ of the poor in mind. A few examples of a caring house were given, such as the purchase by the Guardians of many iron frame beds and good quality mattresses along with the storing of food provisions.
The speaker went on to give an interesting and detailed account of the earlier poor houses in Westbury, where there were in fact two poor houses. One was on the north side of the church, part of a once monastic college, which was endowed as alms houses at the time of the Reformation. The second, being known as Long Entry, a building which served as a poor shelter was demolished in 1838. The account of the building of the subsequent Westbury workhouse gave a description of the many paupers tramping into the city via Westbury seeking work, and how this consequently alarmed the authorities in Westbury. However, her assumption that the workhouse was built out of kindness to paupers, as reflected in Gilbert’s Act, needed more evidence than was on offer.
For example, because the master of the workhouse decided that, during wet weather, resident paupers would not be forced to work in the vegetable gardens, but be permitted to work in doors unpicking oakham, this was an act of kindness!. In reality unpicking oakham was an unpleasant job, which could make the hands bleed, was mind numbingly boring and draconian in nature, because of the targets that needed to be met.
Mention was given to the ‘kindly matron’ Mrs Player, wife to the master of the Westbury workhouse. Mrs Player was matron for 33 years and apparently was a kindly and devoted lady. I can report that in the Bristol Times and Mirror, upon her death in 1831, a notice was placed reading ‘At the poor-house, in the parish of Westbury-on-Trym, aged 77, Sarah she beloved wife and Mr John Player, Master of this establishment for the reception of the aged and impotent poor, the duties of which station, in the office of matron, for the space of nearly 27 years, she had actively, faithfully and with general satisfaction performed’.[1] However, that this would be said about Mrs Player in her death notice, which was probably placed by her husband. It could of course have been indeed a true account of her life, but it does not substantiate her character as mistress of the workhouse. Mr and Mrs Player were appointed Master and Mistress of the new house on 21 March, 1803 at a yearly salary of £30 for their united services.[2] A doctor was also recruited by the name of Mr Pountney on 24 April, 1801 at probably the lowest wage possible.
It must also be pointed out that there was next to no independent inspection of workhouses at this time being under the control of semi-autonomous powers administrated by vestry members. However, under Gilbert’s Act the recording of expenditure, settlements and rates collected in the vestry accounts were inspected annually by county magistrates, who were only required to keep a check on expenditure and not the welfare of inmates.
Corporal punishment was frequently carried out by masters of workhouses, along with other punishments; the withholding of food, the minimal provision of medical care, lock-ups for solitary confinement, children not being permitted to see their parents, all being common place. In the case of Westbury workhouse we do not know anything of the treatment of inmates as the records do not exist. However, it does not mean that because no punishments were recorded in the surviving records of the house that they did not occur. According to Moss (1968), the master and mistress are only mentioned in the records when they were thanked and paid a £5 bonus, although we do not know why. Also, a brief note was made in the records that their salary was raised from £30 p.a. in 1804 to £70 p.a. in 1834. On the other hand according to Moss, the inmates were only paid one sixth part of the work they produced and furthermore this was only paid to them in order to encourage them to further industry.
As in all workhouses, as their name implies, work was to be untaken by all who were capable of work; young children, the elderly, the feeble, the infirm, and the hours would have been very long at six days a week. Therefore, with no objective primary evidence existing that this workhouse was in any way more compassionate than any other, it simply cannot be assumed that upon its conception the house was exclusively based on the philosophy of Gilbert’s Act. The Act stipulated that workhouses should only house children until they could be put out to service, or to be bound in apprenticeship, to reduce future burden on the poor rates. This could be from the age of 12 years. According to Samantha Shave (2008), schooling was administered in an ad hoc manner in other Gilbert workhouses.[3]It is on record that the master, Mr Player, received the sum of £2.2s for the apprenticeship of a Henry Jenkings, pauper, to Samuel and Mary Swadle ‘to bring him up as a Twine Spinner’.[4] This would have been the situation for all children who entered Westbury Workhouse. It was usual for the master to receive a disbursement on the farming out of children, and thereby taking them not only off the parish and, also if possible to be settled in another parish. By removing children from the parish of their birth it was anticipated that if the child required relief in the future they would be the responsibility of their newly settled parish.
There are a few examples of model Gilbert Act workhouses in other parts of the country. But by all accounts their effects were very minimal. For example a Gilbert’s workhouse in west Kent ordered that the elderly in particular were to be given provision only.
Thomas Gilbert believed quite rightly that the old parish workhouses were defective in their management; that they were ‘dens of horror’, that they were places of confusion, disorder and distress, as he reported. Gilbert published a pamphlet in 1781, Plan for The Better Relief and Employment of the Poor, declaring that the ‘vulnerable’ poor…aged, infirm and young only…should be accommodated in the workhouse. But the able-bodied would not, however, be permitted to reside in the house. The new institutions were to be placed under the management of a Board of Guardians. His views eventually led to the passing of Gilbert’s Act 1782, which allowed parishes (some combined as Unions for the first time) to build independent workhouses for the housing of the most vulnerable only. The Act stipulated that those who were to be in the workhouse to be employed in doing ‘as much Work as they can’ inside the workhouse. The Act was non-compulsory legislation and it only required the majority of the parish ratepayers to agree to adopt the legislation, but in fact very few parishes did. Many records are missing but it is believed from varying estimates, including a return from the Select Committee on Poor Relief of 1844, that 68 Gilbert Unions (1,000 parishes) and only 3 Gilbert autonomous parish workhouses came into existence.
Shave (2008), offers a meticulously researched example of the founding and management of a Gilbert parish workhouse. The parish of Alverstoke, which contained the growing navel port of Gosport in Hampshire, adopted Gilbert’s Act in 1799. The parish rector, overseers, churchwardens and ratepayers decided that a property was required to find proper employment for the poor. A new workhouse with a purpose built factory within would produce revenue ‘the profits of which may lessen the expenses of their [paupers] maintenance and to change the situation of the present poor house to a more convenient one’.[5] It was believed that a model Gilbert’s Act workhouse was necessary in order to have a new workhouse approved by local magistrates. It was purposely stated that in the provision of the aged poor they would be ‘’comfortably lodged’ in a detached hospital ward for their further care’. During a severe winter of 1808 the Board decided ‘that the old people were obliged to have fires in their rooms – which have caused greater expenditure of Coals than unusual’, [at the higher price]. Extra tea and sugar was to be allowed to the elderly and infirm if the medical officer of the workhouse felt in his opinion should be indulged medicinally.[6] These ‘kindnesses’ were a stipulation of Gilbert with magistrates required to authorise new workhouses based on such provision and to review the annual accounts. The Act specified that the numbers of poor persons, distinguished by age and sex, how they have been employed, and most importantly, how much money has been earned by the labour of the poor should be recorded.
Due to various economic depressions, enclosures and mechanisation of farming practices, hundreds of thousands of families (perhaps millions) found they had no alternative but to offer themselves, including their children, as cheap labour in the growing new capitalist factories in the towns and cities, such as Bristol. Vagrancy was and still is illegal. In fact the Bristol City authorities had a very harsh way of dealing with such people down on their luck. John Gee wrote of Bristol in 1729, ‘As soon as any of them [vagrants] are espied in the City they are taken up and whipped.’[7] As late as August 1748 ‘It is agreed that a pair of stocks and whipping post be set up at Downend’.[8]
Historically parishes around the country had before the 19th made some provision for the elderly infirm to be housed in small alms houses, also known as poor houses. This was paid for out of a rate levied not on income but on the area of land owned by farmers and the landed gentry. The rate was originally introduced under Elizabeth I’s Poor Law Act of 1601. Such a parochial system was unsustainable and led to poor relief rates becoming higher and higher during the 18th century causing continual calls for the system to be abolished. It can be argued that small farmers were distinctly disadvantaged by this system as they paid a large percentage of the rate. However, they found ways to reduce wages paid to their labourers through low wages being subsidised from parish relief, which the same land owners had contributed to.
Parish poor houses were described as appalling slums in most parishes and the earlier poor houses in Westbury were a good example. The socio-political poet George Crabbe described his own poor house in his parish of Aldborough. He wrote of; walls of mud, broken doors, putrid vapours, heartbroken matrons on their joyless beds, forsaken wives and mothers never wed, dejected widows and unheeded tears, the moping idiot and madman gay, the cold charities of man to man, whose laws indeed for ruined age provide.[9] Documented evidence survives of Westbury poor house being in very bad repair. In 1796 a committee was set up to examine the state or repair. Richard Spencer, surveyor, presented the committee with his report in July 1796 stating ‘I am of the opinion that the whole of the buildings in question are so bad and defective as to render it essentially necessary to take down and rebuild the same’.[10] The description is clearly stating that the present building on the site was only fit to be demolished. However, it was not until four years later in 1800 that the parish was to consider once again the dreadful condition of their two poor houses. A second surveyor, Mr Forester, stated that the buildings were in such a bad state of repair by 1800, that only a very elaborate rebuilding plan would in any way render them serviceable. He reported that nearly all the walls of the houses were out of the perpendicular, that much of the timbering was rotten, and that ‘The whole of the building to be taken down and a new building be erected’.[11] This time it was considered that the parish might build a new larger poor house that would prove to be an economy as only the aged destitute would be given relief.
Another consideration for the parishioners was the rapid rise of poor rate costs as mentioned in the vestry minute book of 1801. ‘and relieving the Parish from part of the heavy burden to which they are now subject’. At the same time it was also noted in the surveyors’ report of 1800 that there was an ‘Increase of the Poor’.[12] It had been argued at the time that where larger parish poor houses had already been erected some paupers came off parish out-relief due to the fear of being ordered into the workhouse, therefore keeping the poor rate down.
Also during this time there were many uprisings across the country which included discontent among local landless labourers. In the Bristol region usually due to low wages and a general lack of employment, there were violent riots. The Napoleonic Wars had caused much hardship with high grain prices and enclosures (capitalistic privatisation of previous common lands), were forcing the landless labourer off the land and families into the towns. Furthermore, prominent radicals were agitating in the countryside putting the ruling classes on high alert with the threat of working class uprisings in other parts of the countryside and most alarmingly in nearby parishes. The vestry Book for Westbury states during 1796 that:
‘Whereas inflammatory hand bills have been distributed in the parishes of Henbury and Westbury tending to make the labourers dissatisfied with the present prices of labour and persuading them to enter into a combination [union] not to work under such prices as mentioned in the said handbills, it was there unanimously proposed and resolved by the persons then present that the Parish of Henbury and Westbury do jointly united in prosecuting the distributors’.[13]
Tellingly the Westbury Poor OrderBook recorded on 24 April, 1807 ‘It appeared to this meeting that the Tything of Stoke Bishop having become extremely burthensome (sic) to the Overseers by reason of three fields in the said Tything adjoining the City of Bristol having been converted into several streets of houses amounting to near 160, it is this day agreed (under the approvation of the Magistrates) to divide the aforesaid Tything into two divisions’. A growing population in Bristol, due to urban expansion was causing great concern to the Parish, and the possible effects on the poor rate. By the adoption of Gilbert’s Act the parish would only be obliged to offer the house to the most in need, such as orphans and the elderly infirm , with the able-bodied unemployed being only handed the most rudimentary out-relief. The vestry members were sending a clear message to the landless poor that they were not welcomed in their parish if not in gainful employment. In January 1801, the vestry started making proposals to build a new workhouse in order to save money and control the provision of poor relief in their parish, thereby excluding interference from the long established neighbouring Bristol Corporation. It was recorded in the vestry minutes on 14 January, 1801 ‘That in erecting any new building for the use of the poor, the parish adopt the provisions of an Act commonly called Gilbert’s Act’. Further to this on 24 March, at a public meeting, ‘the Provisions, Rules, Orders and regulations and comply with all the requisitions prescribed in the said [Gilbert’s] Act’.[14]
I would argue that the vestry were under very considerable pressure to build a new workhouse in part due to the present house being effectively condemned for a second time. Also, because they were experiencing a rise in the number of people applying for relief, and as a consequence pressure was mounting from landowners to curtail the rise in the poor rate. In a report presented to magistrates when applying for permission to open a new workhouse, mention is given to an ‘Increase of the Poor’, which is an indication that the numbers of paupers inhabiting the parish was rising steadily. Another aspect to be considered is that as the poor rate was rising rapidly at this time pressure was being asserted at both national and local government level to find innovative ways to reduce the cost of growing unemployment among agricultural workers. (Eventually this was to lead to the New Poor Law Act of 1834). Gilbert’s Act would give more power to the land owning farmers, who were the main source of work in parishes and with them being the payers of the poor rate. The Act gave ‘the principle of the right to vote according to the amount of property occupied’. Therefore, land owning farmers were able to exercise their control and take advantage of the poor relief system because they often paid low wages, with out-relief supplementing the income of their workers.
Thomas Gilbert campaigned for seventeen years for humanitarian reform of the Old Poor Law system of relief. However, Gilbert’s Act was in reality only a minor act and any ‘positive’ impact was minimal at best. The Act was repealed in 1871. Inmates of Gilbert workhouse’s may have been treated with more respect, given shelter, food and warmth with a uniform to wear, but at the same time inmates were compelled to undertake forced labour such as domestic work, crafts, oakham unpicking and gardening in order to make an anticipated profit, although in truth this ambition was never achieved. In addition, although during the early years the workhouse did maintain unusually low expenditure I would argue this is yet another example that conditions may not have been as declared. By 1820 Westbury workhouse was considered too expensive by the vestry and cuts were made, although it is not recorded which aid was withdrawn, but perhaps food and coal provision were the focus. Furthermore, Moss (1968), states that an entry in the records of 1822 states that the population of the parish had nearly doubled in the last thirty years.
Ryland-Epton offered the principle during her talk that the vestry members wanted to be seen as benefactors of the poor through kindly provision and needed to justify the expense of building a new workhouse to parish rate payers. However, it can also be argued that Westbury parish was adopting Gilbert’s Act to justify the building of a new workhouse to exclude the expanding power of the Bristol Corporation from acquiring control over the parish. Under Gilbert’s rules, in reality the reason behind building a new poor house was to lower the rising local poor rate, and to dissuade paupers and vagrants soliciting relief. It was these factors; measures to deter the poor from asking for poor relief from the parish in order to keep the rate down which was probably the more likely incentive to build a new poor house in Westbury rather than compassion for the poor and unemployed. Overall I felt that there was lack of evidence to support the argument that this was a newly improved workhouse practising progressive, kindly care for the landless poor. During this time Westbury-on-Trym was a parish feeling increasingly threatened by the expansion of Bristol and also experiencing an increasing rise of the needy poor during an age of huge economic growth for some and economic destitution for the many.
It can be presumed in reality that the motive behind the building of the new Gilbert Westbury workhouse was for the following reasons; i) the poor rate might be reduced because the receiving of mainly in-relief paupers would dissuade the able-bodied destitute from apply for relief, ii) that housing and feeding all the parish aged, crippled and orphaned poor under one purpose built building was more economical and easier to plan and budget for than operating out-relief, iii) the adoption of Gilbert’s Act might dissuade vagrants and the destitute tramping in from neighbouring parishes, iv) that a rise in petty crime and riot would decrease if the poor were kept in a workhouse. v) Pauper orphaned children to be apprenticed out as soon as possible to reduce the numbers of children living off the parish. vi) Gilbert’s Act gave more power to land owning farmers, being the major payers of the poor tax. Thus, land owning farmers, who were employing landless parishioners, were able to exercise their control and take advantage of the poor relief system.
This critique is an alternative perspective as to why Gilbert’s Act was adopted in Westbury-on-Trym and offers an additional interpretation on earlier workhouse administration. My view stems from my research into Bristol workhouses post 1834, which has led me to have a very despondent viewpoint regarding the Poor Law Acts through the ages. Louise Ryland-Epton gave a thought-provoking talk, which added an invaluable and original insight into the history of Westbury workhouse.
In 1838 the Poor Law Commissioners in accordance with the 1834 Act, took over the running of Westbury Workhouse. The owners and rate payers were compensated through the purchase of the land and building. It is recorded in Hansard that there was much suspicion on the administration of Gilbert’s workhouses. Poor-Law – Gilbert’s Act. HC Deb 22 February 1838 vol. 41 cc34-9:
Mr. T. Duncombe. There were about 150 townships thus incorporated, and the Poor-law Commissioners wished the House to give them additional powers to dissolve these unions, without the consent of the guardians. The reasons why they stated they wished for these powers were, that the guardians, in the administration not only of relief, but in their own conduct, had been extremely corrupt, and that the system itself was vicious. But they were not satisfied with attributing dishonest motives to the guardians, but they wished the House to believe, that these individuals were idiots and fools….. At the last meeting of the, board of the Oswestry incorporation, when the directors again refused to dissolve, a butcher of the town was in the chair, who was himself supplying the house with meat, and the resolution was carried with every magistrate in the room voting against it.
[1]Bristol Times and Mirror;. Sat. 15 Jan. 1831. p.3 [Back...]
[2]E.H Beard. Transcripts from St. Peter’s Hospital. Bristol Record Office. [Back...]
[3]
Alverstoke Minute Book, Annual Report of 1821. Hampshire Record Office PL2/1/1. Cited in Shave S. The Welfare of the vulnerable in the late 18th and early 19th centuries: Gilbert’s Act of 1782. History in Focus. Institute of Historical Research. Oct. 2008. [Back...]
[4]Poor Order Book. Quoted in M.S. Moss. The Building of and the Subsequent Running of the Westbury-upon-Trym Workhouse, Near Bristol. Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucester Archaeological Society. Feb. 1968. p.165. [Back...]
[5]Alverstoke Minute Book. 15 January 1819. Cited in Shave S. [Back...]
[6]Alverstoke Minute Book. 15 January 1819. Cited in Shave S. [Back...]
[7]Joshua Gee. Trade and Navigation of Great Britain. Gale ECCO. 2010. [Back...]
[8]P. Jones. Making Ends Meet (Poor Relief in 18th Century Mangotsfield). Downend Local History Society. 1998. p.15. [Back...]
Clevedon Library, 37, Old Church Rd, Clevedon BS21 6NN
Author Rosemary Caldicott focuses on the draconian workhouse system that housed the vulnerable poor, and in particular women and children. Rosemary will be examining the history of the workhouse by offering an illustrated talk based on evidence extracted from reports published at the time about the violent death of Hannah Wiltshire who resided in Weston in Gordano. The involvement of Sir Arthur Elton of Clevedon Hall is pivotal to this true life story.
Flyer for the first public meeting concerning the pauper burial ground at Rosemary Green (2014)
Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group (EWMG) was formed in 2014 after a public meeting with residents of Eastville and Greenbank in East Bristol. The primary aim of the group was to research and publish the names and details of the inmates from Eastville Workhouse who were buried in unmarked pauper graves at Rosemary Green. Information on the more than 4,000 burials was published in 2015 and is available on this website. In the two days after its release more than 3,000 people down loaded the data. Over the succeeding years many people researching their family history have been helped by EWMG to find the final resting place of their relatives.
The secondary objective of EWMG was to fund-raise for memorials for the pauper burials and to mark the location of Eastville Workhouse. This was achieved by the unveiling of:
a memorial standing stone to mark and remember the pauper burials at Rosemary Green, Eastville (2015)
The research carried out by EWMG and BRHG into the history of Eastville Workhouse and the pauper burial ground at Rosemary Green was published in the book 100 Fishponds Road: Life and death in a Victorian Workhouse now in its third edition (2020). A short video of the project, made by film students from UWE in 2016, has been watched by 27,000 people on Youtube.
As the main fund-raising efforts of EWMG are now over we have decided to close down the bank account and publish the accounts of the group for the years 2015-2020. You can down load them here.
It has been proposed to maintain the memorials through the help of volunteers and the funds of Bristol Radical History Group. However, this does not mean that our interest in Eastville Workhouse and Rosemary Green is over. Far from it:
BRHG members are currently working on material for schools projects on the Eastville and Bedminster workhouses, with the advice of local teachers. This will be published on the Bristol Radical History Group website.
A new project is being launched to survey Eastville Workhouse inmates buried in unmarked graves in the nearby Greenbank Cemetery.
BRHG will continue with talks and walks on Eastville Workhouse, Rosemary Green and Greenbank Cemetery.
BRHG will also continue to answer queries from people searching for their relatives in Rosemary Green and Greenbank Cemetery.
If you would like to help with these projects or have information that may be of use please contact BRHG at brh@brh.org.uk.
Thanks to the treasurers of EWMG, Trish Mensah and Gloria Davey and a massive thanks to all those who helped and funded this project over the last 5 years. You know who you are.
Probable location of unmarked pauper graves in the west end of Greenbank cemetery
Introduction
From 2014-2019 Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group (EWMG) studied Rosemary Green, a piece of land consecrated and used as a pauper burial ground soon after the new workhouse was built at 100 Fishponds Road in 1847. Eastville workhouse was the primary institution of the Clifton Poor Law Union which covered 12 parishes north of the River Avon outside the old city walls. In March 1877 the Clifton Poor Law Union was renamed as Barton Regis. The Union remained unchanged until 1898 when several of its parishes were incorporated into the Bristol (city) Poor Law Union along with Eastville workhouse. Barton Regis Poor Law Union was finally abolished in 1904.[1]
In 2015 BRHG published data on all the people who were buried in Rosemary Green (4,084) and in 1972 crudely disinterred to common graves in Avonview cemetery in St George. We included people whose bodies were taken for medical research. It was these forgotten people we remembered on the memorial stones at Rosemary Green and Avonview cemetery. We did not record people whose bodies were listed in the death registers as “taken away by friends” as we assumed they would have had a burial in one of the parishes of the Clifton/Barton Regis Poor Law Union.
By November 1895, after nearly a half century of ‘packing and stacking’ bodies, Rosemary Green burial ground was full. The workhouse records state at this point the Guardians switched to the nearby Ridgeway Park Cemetery next to Eastville Park. However, that too filled up fairly rapidly and was only used for pauper burials for 11 years. In the intervening years, the Barton Regis Poor Law Union was abolished, the parishes and workhouse came under control of the Bristol (city) board of Guardians. On February 23rd 1906 the first burial of a pauper associated with Eastville workhouse took place in Greenbank cemetery. By April, pauper burials had ceased at Ridgeway cemetery.
The ‘Union Gate’
The ‘Union Gate’ at the west end of Greenbank Cemetery (Rosemary Green in the background)
The stone gate in Greenbank cemetery at the lower end of Greenbank View, opposite the entrance to Rosemary Green, provided some of the first evidence that pauper burials were taking place in this public cemetery. This entrance is marked on Greenbank cemetery maps as the ‘Union Gate’, which is almost certainly a reference to the Poor Law Union and its workhouse just across Greenbank View. It appears to have been constructed sometime between 1903 and 1921, though the Union Gate was not built for the living but for the passage of the dead. Bodies from the nearby workhouse hospital buildings (blue in the figure) could be moved fairly easily by hand across the top end of Rosemary Green (green) and through the Union gate (red) to the mortuary buildings (black) in the cemetery.[2] With average death rates ranging from 2-4 per week in Eastville workhouse alone in the late nineteenth century, the gate would have been in constant use.[3]
In the summer of 2016, one of the research team visited the office in Greenbank cemetery (the old Mortuary building), with the late, lamented local historian and artist Mike Baker. Julian, a cemetery worker, pointed out the evidently drier coffin shaped patches on the hill going down to Greenbank view and showed us the large plan with the pauper’s graves marked in a different colour. It was now becoming clear that our public cemetery, Greenbank, was operating on the same lines as Rosemary Green, as a repository for unmarked pauper burials.
Greenbank cemetery and Rosemary Green – 1921-1943 OS map
The new research
This was the background to a new phase of research launched in 2021. Two of our members, living locally, were also involved with the Friends of Greenbank cemetery Facebook group. This group along with Bristol and Avon Family Historians had recorded the names and dates of death of people interred at Greenbank. Thanks to help from Bristol Archives who provided high resolution images of the Poor Law Union death registers we have been able to add to this work. We transcribed the names and dates of death and other details from death registers and then cross referred to the cemetery records which determined those who were buried in the unmarked Greenbank burials.
We have found the usual sad and interesting cases – such as a boy drowned in the river and a two-year-old who was buried without a name after being left in the porch of Holy Cross Church. There were a huge number of babies who died in and out of the workhouse providing evidence that although life expectancy was increasing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, mortality rates remained stubbornly high amongst the very young.[4]
One inmate, Elizabeth Petherick, who died on 15th March 1907 had ‘med school’ written in pencil in the Greenbank register, suggesting she (or parts of her body) had been taken for dissection at a medical school. This is backed up by fact that there were two burial dates for her, March 21st 1907 and a second one seven months later on October 10th! It appears that some of her remains were buried at the later date. This example confirms that the practice of ‘giving’ (or selling) bodies to medical schools which had officially begun in Eastville Workhouse in 1872 continued into the twentieth century.[5]
Throughout the records we noted that, from time to time, some people were being buried at Arnos Vale cemetery in south Bristol. Interestingly, there is one exception in the records which delineates a burial at Arnos Vale as being ‘CoE’ (Church of England). There is a section of Arnos Vale cemetery called ‘Holy Soul’s’ which is where several of the inmates with Irish sounding names were buried. The noting of an exception implies that the those sent to Arnos Vale cemetery were not Church of England and might have mainly been Roman Catholics. A number of these names look of Irish origin, which would support this view.
We were also intrigued by the large number of men who died at 76 Milk Street (today, part of Cabot Circus shopping centre). We recently discovered that it was once a hostel that was opened by the Salvation Army to house around 40 destitute women, although we’re not sure in what year it converted to house men; we are hoping the Salvation Army still have records of this. Gloucester Lane off Old Market Street is another ominous address where lots of deaths occur. References in the death registers to Pullin’s and Rowe’s Lodging Houses, help explain why so many deceased paupers came from Gloucester Lane.
The workhouse historian Peter Higginbotham explained to us that if someone was in an unmarked grave it didn’t mean they were necessarily receiving poor relief. Unmarked (or ‘public’) graves were used for people who couldn’t (or whose family couldn’t) pay the costs of a ‘proper’ funeral and burial. In such cases, the address in the Poor Law Union death register would be listed a private house.
Signs of change…
The change from the majority of pauper burials being associated with Eastville workhouse pre-World War One to homes, hostels and lodging houses after the war is a reflection of political and economic developments. These are marked by the beginning of the welfare system in 1911, as a result of a massive strike wave, and the gradual phasing out of the workhouse which became statutory in 1929 with the abolition of the Poor Law Unions.
Better economic conditions for the working class may also be reflected by the number of pauper bodies recovered by their relatives and/or friends for burial. These are marked as ‘taken by friends’ in the Register of Deaths and there are significant differences between the Victorian, Edwardian and post-World War One periods. In our survey of burials at Rosemary Green in the Victorian period we estimated that around 1 in 5 pauper bodies were recovered, that is someone other than the Poor Law Union were able to pay for a funeral and burial. By the Edwardian period this ratio had reversed with more than half of the bodies being recovered.[6]
A clue to the changes in the nature of the Poor Law Unions and their workhouses can also be seen in the evolving names for the workhouse. Prior to World War One the death registers are entitled ‘Eastville Workhouse’ but at some point after 1907 it is renamed as the ‘Eastville Institution’ (see figures below). This concurs with a comment made by a correspondent to the Western daily Press (formerly a registrar of births, deaths and marriages) who claimed that around 1912:
all Boards of Guardians were instructed to give an alternative name to Poor Law Institutions under their care…to avoid stigma when births or deaths were registered that had taken place in such buildings.[7]
Finally, as part of the 1948 welfare reforms it appears it was renamed once again, as ‘100 Fishponds Road’.
Eastville Workhouse Register of Deaths 1907-1914Eastville Institution Register of Deaths 1924-1928
Why this is work important?
In 2015, over a few days, more than 3,000 people in Bristol downloaded the newly released data on the forgotten paupers buried in Rosemary Green. Since than many more people researching their family history have discovered ancestral relatives who were inmates of Eastville workhouse and were buried at Rosemary Green. We have had correspondence with people not just in the UK and Ireland but as far away as Canada and Australia.
There was huge support and praise for this community history project as it not only helped people find the forgotten but exposed the discriminatory treatment of the poor in life and death in Victorian times and more recently. It also brought to light the estimated million or more unmarked graves in the UK from the period after the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act.[8] Many of these unmarked burials lie in public cemeteries without recognition, some of which are still in operation today. Our current project is aimed at exposing this fact in our local cemetery, Greenbank, and then encouraging others to research their local cemeteries. We believe unmarked Poor Law burials must be recognised, made public and physically memorialised for the true nature of this country’s history to be made visible and properly understood by future generations.
What period does the new data cover?
The latest data transcribed from the Poor Law Union death registers covers burials in Greenbank cemetery and a few in Arnos Vale. The periods of coverage are listed below:
April 1906 – July 1914 [Bristol Archives refs: 30105-2; 30105-3-5]
Jan 1924 – Sep 1928 [Bristol Archives refs: 30105-3-6]
Unfortunately, the Registers of Deaths for Eastville Workhouse for 1914-1924 do not appear to exist in the archives. The data on the period between the end of the burials in Rosemary Green (1895) and beginning of the burials in Greenbank cemetery (1906) which were interments in the Ridgeway Park cemetery are yet to be transcribed.
When is the data going to be released?
We are aiming to release the data as a series of searchable pdfs on the Bristol Radical History Group website over the next few months. If you would like to get involved in this project, please contact BRHG at brh@brh.org.uk. You can get regular updates here.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the staff at Bristol Archives, particularly Matt Coles and David Emeney for their help with this research. We would also like to recognise the work of artist, craftsman and historian Mike Baker who sadly passed away last year and aptly was the last person to be buried in Greenbank cemetery. Mike’s plaque marking the workhouse can be found on the old workhouse gate posts on the pedestrian entrance to East Trees Health Centre at 100 Fishponds Road.
Gloria Davey, Di Parkin, Trish Mensah, Roger Ball – Bristol Radical History Group – December 2021
Mike with the Eastville Workhouse plaque
[1]Ball, R. Parkin, D. and Mills, S. 100 Fishponds Rd: Life and Death in a Victorian Workhouse Third edtn. (Bristol: BRHG, 2020) pp. 29-30, 57-58. [Back...]
[6]Estimate based on sample from 1909; of the 307 deaths, 174 of the bodies (57 per cent) were ‘taken by friends’. Bristol Archives Ref. 30105-3-5. [Back...]
Monday 16 October – 7.30pm-9.00pm – Friends of Eastville Park Community Hub (Nissen Hut), Eastville Park, Near Park Avenue car park, Bristol BS5 6QG
In 2015, to great public interest, Eastville Workhouse Memorial Group released details of more than 4,000 paupers who were buried in unmarked graves in Rosemary Green. These were inmates from Eastville Workhouse which was situated on the present-day East Park housing estate on Fishponds Road. The burials in Rosemary Green covered the period 1851-1895, but the question remained: what happened to unclaimed deceased paupers after this period?
Over the last two years researchers Gloria Davey and Di Parkin have collated data on pauper burials in Greenbank Cemetery just over the road from Rosemary Green. The incomplete Poor Law Union death registers cover the period from 1895 to 1933 and demonstrate that public cemeteries may contain large numbers of unmarked and unrecognised pauper burials, many of whom were workhouse inmates.
In this meeting Molly Conisbee will survey pauper burial practices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the researchers will present their findings along with exposing some hidden history of Greenbank Cemetery.
Refreshments will be available.
Hidden history in the pleasant landscape of Greenbank Cemetery
