Discover your ancestors who died in workhouses in six poor law unions in Lincolnshire between 1866 and 1944. The records will reveal where and when your relative died, and possibly how they died. You can use details such as their birth year and the parish they were admitted from to delve further back into your family history.
Each record comprises a transcript of the original register from. The amount of information listed varies, but the records usually include a combination of the following information about your ancestor:
• First name
• Last name
• Birth year
• Parish admitted from
• Death date
• Death year
• Notes (e.g. cause of death)
• Workhouse location
• Poor law union
• Burial details (e.g. date, location, whom arranged by)
The record set comprises over 10,220 records from six of the fifteen poor law unions of Lincolnshire, England.
These records date from 1866 to 1944.
Workhouses in Lincolnshire
The 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act established 15 poor-law unions in Lincolnshire, each with its own workhouse. Workhouses were supposed to be a deterrent to the able-bodied pauper. Under the Act, poor relief would only be granted to those who passed the “workhouse test”, in other words you would have to be desperate to enter a workhouse.
They were there for the truly destitute, the so-called “incompetent poor” - an able bodied man could only enter if his family came with him. The elderly, the infirm, orphans, the mentally ill and single mothers were all accommodated but life inside the workhouse was intended to be as off putting as possible. Men, women, children, the infirm and the able-bodied were all housed separately. Food was basic and monotonous - gruel, a watery porridge, or bread and cheese. Inmates had to wear the rough workhouse uniform and sleep in dormitories and baths were allowed, supervised, once a week.
The able bodied were given hard work, stone breaking or picking apart old ropes. Families were only allowed minimal access to one another and in the early days were not even allowed to speak to each other outside these access times. The workhouse came to be seen as the ultimate degradation.
Some people only stayed in the workhouses briefly, when there was no other option, others spent their entire lives in the same workhouse. If an inmate died in the workhouse their family was notified and would be given the option to organize a funeral themselves. Many were unable to do so because of the expense. If no one else came forward the Guardians of the workhouse would arrange a burial in a local cemetery or burial ground usually the parish where the workhouse stood but later rules did allow for the deceased’s own parish if such a wish had been expressed.
The burial would be in the cheapest possible coffin in an unmarked grave, often a communal one. Bodies that were unclaimed for 48 hours could also be donated for medical research or training, a form of disposal allowable under the terms of the 1832 Anatomy Act for any institution whose inmates had died within its care. All deaths were registered in the normal way. These records cover those who died in the Poor Law Unions of Boston, Bourne, Gainsborough, Holbeach, Lincoln, and Louth.
Lincolnshire is situated in the east of England. Its county town is Lincoln.