Background for teachers

• West Sussex
• The poor and the workhouse system
• Public health

West Sussex

Through much of the 19th century the rapid increase in population (see table below) could not be supported by the rural economy, and many people in the countryside were living on the breadline.

Being a predominantly rural county West Sussex did not experience the economic growth of those areas dominated by factories, mines and other heavy industries such as the North and Midlands.

Population of towns

In the 1830s over half of the county's population lived in rural areas, around 23% inhabited coastal towns, and 16% in other towns. Poor rates became a heavy burden, as 80% of the rural working class in West Sussex were claiming benefits. Low prices for corn and other agricultural produce contributed to growing unemployment in rural areas and growing discontent. Rioting (Swing Riots) took place in over 30 villages in the West Sussex of the 1830s, culminating in the execution at Horsham Gaol of 4 men for rick-burning after trials between 1831 and 1834.

Throughout the Victorian period, people were leaving the countryside, usually to seek work in towns. Much of the countryside was owned by relatively few landed families and some tried to solve the problems through emigration schemes, or sending workers north to work in the manufacturing towns. Large landowners, such as the 3rd Earl of Egremont experimented  with agricultural improvements on his Petworth estate in an effort to improve production to meet increasing needs.

Although the rural economy picked up in the 1850s and 1860s, cheap imports of corn from America, Poland and Russia caused grain prices to fall and land to be left uncultivated. This in turn led to rising unemployment among agricultural labourers in West Sussex from the 1870s. The County's suicide rate was over 6 times the national average in 1875. A great deal of land was converted from arable or crop-growing to pasture for cattle and sheep from this period onwards.

In response to these problems, new systems to improve poor relief and public health were introduced.

Back to top

The poor and the workhouse system

The parish had long been an important unit of local government dealing with, among other things, the poor of the parish. The spiralling cost of 'out-relief', that is payments made by the parish to supplement the meagre wages of many labourers, particularly agricultural labourers, forced a governmental review of the system. This resulted in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which formed the parishes into groups or 'Unions' with a shared large workhouse controlled by a Board of Guardians. In what is now West Sussex, for most of the Victorian period, there were 10 Unions: Cuckfield, East Grinstead, East Preston, Horsham, Midhurst, Petworth, Steyning, Thakeham, Westbourne and Westhampnett, plus the City of Chichester set up by Local Act.

Conditions inside the workhouse were deliberately made as harsh as possible to deter as many as possible from seeking poor relief, and the old system of 'out-relief', or handouts, was partly, but not completely, phased out. Inmates were forced to do physically demanding or tedious work, wear an uncomfortable uniform, were divided into men, women, children, sick and healthy, and fed unappetising food such as gruel (watery porridge). Families were divided up and parents often only saw their children, and each other, once a week. Most inmates were those who literally had no other choices, being elderly, sick, unmarried mothers and orphans, rather than the able-bodied unemployed.

By 1839 nearly half of the total workhouse population in England were children: 42,767 out of 97,510. Many of them were orphans, some abandoned, illegitimate, or had parents who were mentally ill or physically incapable of looking after them. In 1841, 107 out of the 153 inmates at Horsham Workhouse were children, and 71 apparently had no parent with them. Sadly, there were many cases of cruelty by fellow inmates and by some masters and other workhouse staff. Children were often caned for running away or bad behaviour.

Later in the Victorian period conditions became better with improved food, a library and newspapers provided. Children were sometimes housed in less frightening 'cottage homes' away from the forbidding main institutions. The proportion of children in workhouses dropped too; in 1874 at Horsham, for example, out of 1,154 paupers only 112 were children.

Websites providing much more information on workhouses, and particularly case studies of children can be found in the related links above.

Public health

In 1842, 50% of towns in Britain had impure water supplies and West Sussex towns were no exception. Towns like Chichester and Worthing had grown overcrowded and unhealthy. There was a shortage of public wells, sometimes infected by seepage from cesspools, rivers were used as open sewers, and refuse was left in the streets for weeks on end. Overcrowding and lack of sanitation caused frequent outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. Some housing was poorly built, badly ventilated and drained, and often overcrowded.

In 1848 the first Public Health Act was passed, setting up local Boards of Health, and later Medical Officers of Health were appointed to advise the boards. The Medical Officer of Health annual reports (available at Worthing Library and the County Record Office) from 1870 give statistics concerning health issues, overcrowding and sanitation. They are full of cases studies of poor quality rural cottages and slum urban housing. 

Further Public Health Acts followed with rural and urban sanitary authorities being set up in 1872 (formed from a basis of the Poor Law Unions). In Chichester, an Act was passed in 1873 to build a pumping station, but it was not until 1892 that a scheme for a sewerage works was approved. However, by 1898, 1,965 houses had been connected to mains supply.

Despite these improvements, epidemics were not eliminated until the 20th century. As late as 1893, Worthing suffered a typhoid epidemic that claimed 188 lives. Published reports, press cuttings, ephemera and photos are available at Worthing Library. Chichester suffered outbreaks of typhoid in 1896, 1897 and 1898.

Back to top