The English Workhouse system dated back in a recognisable form to the seventeenth century, but is probably most associated with the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, including through Dickens’ critical portrayal in Oliver Twist (serial 1837-8, novel 1839). However, though modified the workhouse system in many respects was still in being during the first three decades of the twentieth century, its remnants not being finally abolished until 1948.
Greenwood, aged ten, together with his mother and younger sister, had to go before a Board of Guardians in 1913 to ask (unsuccessfully) for Outdoor Poor Relief. Between 1937 and 1967 Greenwood published six pieces, some fictional, some documentary, about the impact of the Workhouse on his generation, and on those of his parents and grandparents. Clearly, the workhouse was something he felt compelled to return to across his writing career. This article is the first to discuss Greenwood’s Workhouse Memories.
Enjoy!
See: Walter Greenwood’s Workhouse Memories (1933 to 1967) *
- Best Chris.
Walter Greenwood: Not Just Love on the Dole 