Rescued by the Workhouse
Workhouses and the Poor Law system which administered them have an appalling reputation, as places of degradation which people fought hard to avoid and escape. Doubtless this is largely deserved. But all public services have people working within them who care.
Catherine Humphreys always said little about her beginnings. Her family believed she was probably an orphan, spending time in an institution. They did know that by 1901, when she was 12 years old, she was in Teddington in Surrey ( now South-West London. ) Even by that early age she was working – as a domestic servant in a boarding house run by Mrs Augusta Fell and her adult daughters. Catherine’s job was to look after 11 other children, the youngest a baby of 7 months.
A census record from 1891 gave a clue to Catherine’s early life – showing her unmarried mother and father living together in Croydon, a few miles north of their families in Surrey. He was already married to someone else. Both her parents had come from difficult family backgrounds. But still there was no explanation of what had happened to Catherine.
Then a document hidden in the Surrey archives for over 100 years laid out the whole story. The Kingston Poor Law Union kept detailed records; the key paragraph in Catherine’s record was from August 1901.
“Was Boarded out at Mrs Fell, Teddington, but ran away owing to bad treatment. Found wet through at Norbiton Railway Station and taken to workhouse. She was sent to Mrs Fell by her mother who could not be found. Guardians after various enquiries decided to keep her.”
So, instead of sending Catherine back to Mrs Fell’s cruel regime, the Poor Law Guardians took her in, provided a home in one of their “scattered” houses out in the community, sent her to school, and then gave her a job as a seamstress.
They even kept in touch after she had left to take up a job in another workhouse, where they note she had been “happily married” to the husband she found also working there.
Catherine went on to qualify as a nurse and the married couple built careers in managing workhouses in Yorkshire. This led to the family view that, contrary to popular belief, workhouses could be generous places, taking in the most desperate and giving them a home.
In Catherine’s case, this future success can be tied directly back to a chance meeting on a railway station platform and the humanity shown by the people who found her.
(Words in collaboration with John Rogers.)
