Vagrancy
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Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, scavenging, o
John Everett Millais' The Blind Girl, depicting a vagrant musician
Vagabonds being arrested in 19th century France
A woodcut from c. 1536 depicting a vagrant being punished in the streets in Tudor England
The Pass Room at Bridewell, c. 1808. At this time paupers from outside London apprehended by the authorities could be imprisoned for seven days before being sent back to their own parish.
Workhouse
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In Britain and Ireland, a workhouse was a total institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. In Scotland, they were usually known as poor
Vagrancy
…theft. In Western countries, vagrancy was historically a crime punishable with forced labor, military service, imprisonment, or confinement to dedicated labor houses. Both vagrant and vagabond ultimately derive from the Latin word vagari, meaning "to wander". The term vagabond and its archaic equivalent vagabone…
Former workhouse in Nantwich in Cheshire, dating from 1780
The 'Red House' at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk was founded as a workhouse in 1664.
"The workroom at St James's workhouse", from The Microcosm of London (1808)
Former Cleveland Street workhouse, London W1, photographed in 1930. It later became part of the Middlesex Hospital.