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
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.
Poorhouses were public institutions used from the seventeenth through the mid twentieth centuries to provide relief for people unable to support themselves, including the elderly, the sick, people wit
Almshouse, Boston, 1851
Intemperance and poverty propaganda, 1847
Dexter Asylum, Rhode Island, 1830
Poorhouse residents, St Louis, 1904