Ecclesall Union Workhouse. Source: Picture Sheffield.
Following the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act two workhouses were established in Sheffield. The Sheffield Union workhouse was originally on Kelham Island and later moved to the Northern General hospital site. The Ecclesall Union was in Nether Edge, later becoming the Nether Edge hospital.
The 1834 legislation was intended to discourage able-bodied men from claiming poor relief, but in practice the workhouse inmates were largely children, women, the elderly, the sick, the mentally ill and the disabled. Conditions were harsh – family members were separated, inmates had their own clothes removed and were given coarse workhouse uniforms, and the able-bodied were expected to complete hard, menial tasks such as breaking rocks and oakum picking. (Oakum is produced by cutting up old rope, striking it with a hammer to loosen old tar, then picking it apart for reuse. The work would often tear the flesh on people’s hands.)
Over 10 per cent of the burials in the Sheffield General Cemetery have their last residence recorded as a workhouse. Poorer people had no choice but to go into the workhouse when they were too frail or too sick to work, unless family members could care for them. Workhouses had infirmaries attached to them which functioned as public hospitals. The workhouse system was formally abolished in 1929.
You can read more about people who died in the workhouse who are buried in the Cemetery in the Sheffield General Cemetery Trust’s publication A Window into the Workhouse.
