Wateringbury born Inmates of West Malling Union Workhouse (1881)

Post date: Jun 22, 2020 9:5:36 PM

Transcribed from 1881 census

Wateringbury was one of 22 parishes using the West Malling Union Workhouse. At the census there were 13 staff and 230 inmates including the 9 Wateringbury born. There was an elected Board of Guardians.

The union was located south of West Malling, between West Malling and Kings Hill where the private road Orwell Spike now is.

Built in 1836 it cost £5,300 and had a capacity of 360.

[This paragraph from Peter Higginbotham's "Workhouses of London and The South East"] Designed by John Whichcord¹ with a similar layout to his Dartford Workhouse. It had a long entrance range with a central archway, and a T-shaped main block with the leg of the "T" protruding forward from the main accommodation at the rear.

[This paragraph from Peter Higginbotham's "Workhouses of London and The South East"] In May 1838, three young inmates, boys, were given three weeks imprisonment with hard labour by Tunbridge Wells magistrates. The boys had risen early, put bolsters in their beds, let themselves out of a window and scampered around the countryside before returning for breakfast.

In 1858 a tender was advertised (Maidstone Journal and Kentish Advertiser - Tuesday 09 February 1858)

for

Erecting New Schoolrooms, Dormitories, and Infirmaries for Children; and a New Infirmary for infectious cases; Building Yard-walls. Offices, etc.; together with various Alterations to the existing Buildings.

In 1863 the position of Workhouse Master was advertised (South Eastern Gazette - Tuesday 22 September 1863) at a salary of £100 p.a. Candidates had to provide "security with two sufficient sureties in £100."

By 1897 the workhouse included an infirmary, chapel, school, isolation block, married couple ward, pyschiatric ward and laundry.

The 1929 Local Government Act abolished Boards of Guardians the following year throughout the U.K. transferring responsibility for poor relief (or public assistance as it became called) to County or borough councils. Rather than workhouse the term Public Assistance Institution became used.

George Orwell stayed one night, 1st September 1931, as a "casual" (i.e. tramp). He wrote in Hop-Picking Diaries

"The Bathroom was clean and decent, and we were actually given a clean towel each. The food was the same old bread and marg, though, and the Tramp Major got angry when we asked in good faith whether the stuff they gave us to drink was tea or cocoa. We had beds with straw palliasses and plenty of blankets, and both slept like logs.

In the morning they told us we must work till eleven, and set us to scrubbing out one of the dormitories. As usual the work was a mere formality . .....The dormitory was a room of fifty beds, close together, with that warm faecal stink that you never seem to get away from in the workhouse. .....These workhouses seem all alike, and there is something intensely disgusting in the atmosphere of them....

At eleven they let us out with the usual hunk of bread and cheese.

John Blest writing in 1970 comments that the workhouse had "disappeared" since Orwell's stay. After WW2 it became known as King Hill Hostel housing homeless families and attracting lots of press publicity locally and at a national level. In 1953 the Daily Mirror reported protests about women from homeless families being asked to scrub floors. In 1965 two husbands were jailed in Brixton jail for visiting their families outside visiting hours in violation of a court order. In 1966 100 people demonstrated about husbands not being able to stay overnight outside the Minister of Health's home.

In 1965 a planning application was filed to convert the casual ward into accommodation for 4 families,

Kent County Council newspaper adverts for staff to work there from the early 1970s indicate that it accommodated 50 homeless families.

Extract from Kent & Sussex Courier - Friday 07 March 1975

Councillors welcomed the decision to close the King Hill Hostel for the homeless at West Malling. "Anybody who has visited that establishment would wish to see it come to an end," said Cr Reginald Ward. Cr John Oldfield commented: "The sooner it goes the better." He said there had been 45 families in the hostel last November. The number had now dwindled to 23.

..........

Cr Mrs Elvy said it would take some time to close the hostel down completely.

"The hostel will not go next week or even next month, but we want to phase it out as quickly as possible," she said.

However next year responsibility for homeless families was transfered. From Kent & Sussex Courier - Friday 26 March 1976

COUNCILS CLASH OVER HUT SITE

TWO wood huts at the King Hill Hostel site, West Malling, would be perfect

as reception centre for homeless families. This is what Tonbridge and Mailing District CouncIl wants to use them for when it takes over responsibility for homelessness in April. However, the Kent County Council, which owns the huts and the King Hill site has put a spanner in the works. The county is willing to lease the huts to the district council but only if it takes the surrounding eight acres of land as well. The KCC intends to clear the site knocking down the former workhouse but keeping the huts. The district council Chief Executive, Mr Bill Stanford, reported to Monday's housing committee meeting: "It will be quite uneconomic for the district

council to lease the whole eight acres merely to retain the two cedar huts for homeless families." However the council needs somewhere to house the homeless for short stays. These huts would be ideal. It was decided that the officers would again try to convince their opposite numbers at County Hall to lease the huts without the land.

See also Life in Union (1870), Wateringbury born Inmates of West Malling Union Workhouse (1911) and Wateringbury born Inmates of West Malling Union Workhouse (1851).

Map below of workhouse from OS 25inch map revised 1895 published 1896 . The workhouse grounds are approx 735 feet by 495 feet. it is followed by the workhouse as shown in the OS 25inch map 1907 revision published in 1908.

A photo, believed to be from 1900, is shown above.

Freda Barton (1867-1940) was a renown West Malling photographer who took many photos of West Malling but I have not succeeded in finding one of this building.

Notes:

1. John Whichcord's obituary (1790 to 1860) in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1860 credits him with erecting 15 union poor houses, as well as Kent County Lunatic Asylum, Barming, The Corn Exchange , Maidstone, Kent Fire Office, Maidstone and the churches of Holy Trinity and St. Phillip, Maidstone.