Shadows of the Workhouse
by Jennifer Worth

Fierce.  And real.  I need to understand where the details came from--was it all relayed first person to the author, or her coworkers?  Did she have to flesh out the stories from historical records?

What's a workhouse?  In 1834 Parliament passed the Poor Law Amendment Act.  Its aim was to care for the ever-growing populations of poor and destitute people--provide a "safety net" to feed the poorest of society.  She writes,

...it was nearly one hundred years ahead of its time, yet the implementation of the high ideals of the reformers went tragically wrong, and the workhouses came to be dreaded as places of shame, suffering, and despair.

Think concentration camp.  Think women and children, brothers and sisters, separated at admission.   Living conditions harsh by design, to prevent the indolent from getting an easy ride at government expense.  Permission to leave for short periods, such as searching for work, had to be specially granted.  Corporal punishment was used for bad behavior, such as complaining.  The willingness to administer corporal punishment was one of the requirements for the master's job. Imagine the sort of person who'd take on such a job.

Don't let my sad description steer you away from the book.  Remember, at the time the stories were told, the workhouses were history.  But "near" history, still present in the minds and nightmares of the older people.  The first part of the book is a description of three of those people, both past and present, and it's gritty but not grim.

The second half of the book is mostly concerned with Sister Monica Joan's hijinks, and really very funny.   But I don't remember there being any midwifery at all, so I was a little disappointed.