Why was Oliver Twist born in a workhouse?

Answer 1

The websitehttp:/www.workhouses.org.uk gives a particularly fascinating description of them.

Apart from the basic rooms such as a dining-hall for eating, day-rooms for the elderly, and dormitories for sleeping, workhouses often had their own bakery, laundry, tailor's and shoe-maker's, vegetable gardens and orchards, and even a piggery for rearing pigs. There would also be school-rooms, workshops, nurseries, infirmary and fever wards for the sick, a chapel, and a dead-room or mortuary. Workhouses were also highly compartmentalised to separate the various classes of inmates, with the yards between the various buildings being divided up by eight-foot-high walls.

Maybe this doesn't sound punitive, but rules, punishments, and conditions made them places to be dreaded and avoided at all costs (see Dombey and Son). Upon entering the workhouse, families were split up and assigned to their section (women's, men's and children's) and issued uniforms. Like a prison, the wardens controlled the times the inmates woke, ate, worked, and slept. No visitors were allowed and no liquor could be brought in. They were paid for their work, but only pennies on a shilling. Many still enforced the Treadmill, a paddle-wheel-like contraption that inmates were required to 'climb' for hours at a time, either to pump water to the facility or as punishment task. And upon entry, inmates lost their right to vote (if they had indeed qualified beforehand). Food, too, must be considered part of the punishment. At one workhouse, inmates were allowed the following daily: 7 Ounces of Meat when dressed, without Bones, to every grown Person,

2 Ounces of Butter,

4 Ounces of Cheese,

1 Pound of Bread,

3 Pints of Beer Children were not given so much, and often given gruel--like Oliver was--which can be stretched using hot water almost indefinitely.

Answer 2

It is an old and rusty place but is looked after