Note 202 — Chapter II

The possibility was once barely mentioned in 1837 of the one "common workhouse establishment" consisting "of a selection of the better workhouses now existing in each union," instead of concentrating "all the necessary accommodation in one workhouse situated in the centre of the union" (Third Annual Report, 1837, p. 27.) See also the reference to this possibility in the Instructional Letter sent in that year to each new Board of Guardians (ibid. p. 82). In June 1837, the Central Authority said that it had always preferred one central workhouse, but had sometimes allowed existing ones to remain. Its two years' experience had now confirmed it in its belief that one central workhouse was better (Letter to Newcastle Board of Guardians, 20th June 1837).

Two years later, in describing, with praise, "the consolidation of workhouse establishments" which had been going on in Lancashire and Yorkshire, the Central Authority observes "that very few will ultimately find it desirable to retain more than one establishment" (Fifth Annual Report, 1839, p. 29). In the Special Report on the Further Amendment of the Poor Law, 1839, it is pointed out, as evidence that the Central Authority had not yet had time to put its policy completely into execution, that there were "still about seventy unions in which a central workhouse" had "not yet been built." (Report on the Further Amendment of the Poor Law, 1839, p. 7.)