Note 156 — Chapter II
Reading edition
At Midsummer, 1838, the children under sixteen in the workhouses of the 478 unions then making returns numbered no fewer than 42,767, out of a total workhouse population of 97,510. (Special Report on the Further Amendment of the Poor Law, 1839, p. 56.) In 1840 the Poor Law Commissioners estimated the total number under 16 to be 64,570, of whom 56,835 were between 2 and 16 (Report on the Training of Pauper Children, 1841, p. iii.).