Saint George's Workhouse (Mint Street)

[VALLMO9]

I thought I'd located an ancestor in the Mint Street Register on Ancestry. This register is a goldmine for anyone with an ancestor in this workhouse. In many cases the Admission notes for each inmate contain home addresses, occupation, martial status, and specific reason for admission. The notes also mention if the inmate has been in the workhouse before.

Examples: One poor fellow (age 47) is described as "Insane - brought in by PC 70". For a little girl (age 4): "Destitute, mother in Guys Hospital".
Another girl (age 18 months): "Imprisonment of mother, a charwoman". One man (age 26): "Homeless, removed from tramp shed". (I'm intrigued - what does a tramp shed look like?)

This entry is very sad: 5 children (ages 2 to 12) "Deserted by father, a tailor. Mother in prison. 5, 6 & 7 Herberts Buidings".
A boy (age 5) "Found deserted in Boro Road, brought in by PC 488".

I like the naming and shaming notes: A woman (age 26) "In labor, widow, charwoman, 9 Union Street".

I wish someone would give me a grant so I could fully research all of these inmates.

[Mick Loney]

You get a similar insight from the notebooks Booth made for his poverty maps.
One of mine had a note to say her son was a drunkard, and a thoroughly loathsome man. Can’t get much clearer than that, he certainly didn’t pull his punches

[VALLMO9]

Some of the Admission entries I saw noted "Has a bad leg". At first I thought it said "He's a bad egg".

[Jimbo50]

Mick. Do you know if anybody has indexed his notebooks ? I remember reading them years ago from a pdf download.
Not only the workhouses and parish assistance case descriptions, but the businesses as well..employees..where what they did.
It's a goldmine I'd forgotten.

[VALLMO9]

Apparently some of the notebooks are searchable: https://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks You can search the Stepney Union casebooks for names and ages (or birth dates) of individuals mentioned. Looks like the Police notebooks are searchable, as well.