Hertfordshire Genealogy: Web Site: The History of Workhouses

The Workhouse

Many Genealogy web sites are continually being updated and it is impossible for me to monitor all these changes. You should therefore visit this web site to discover the facilities currently offered.

This is an excellent private website run by Peter Higginbotham - which is continually being updated. Not only does it give much general information, with illustrations, of how the workhouses were operated but also includes useful information on individual workhouses.

Map showing Bishop's Stortford Workhouse circa 1897

Up to August 2001 it had pages for the Barnet, Bishop's Stortford, Buntingford, St Albans, Ware, Watford and Welwyn, including maps (such as the above example), photos, lists of staff and inmates in the 1881census and references to surviving records. There is also some basic information on the other workhouses in Hertfordshire.

Peter Higginbotham has also published a book, Voices From the Workhouse, The History Press, 2012, ISBN 978 0 7524 6749 8, which is reviewed in Genealogists' Magazine, June 2013.

See also Hertfordshire Poor Law Unions

If you can add to the information given above tell me.