Rural parish workhouses during the later Old Poor Law

Abstract This article tackles the paucity of research conducted on indoor relief in the countryside during the Old Poor Law by examining ten parish workhouses in Lincolnshire. It argues that parish workhouses developed into institutions which were circumstantially targeted at the poor. The workhouse boundary was permeable as paupers often experienced indoor and outdoor relief across a life-cycle of need, alongside other support strategies distinct from the poor law. Apart from providing relief for a range of paupers, the workhouse played a deterrent capacity in the negotiated process of relief. To make this effective, workhouse life underscored a loss of independence through a reduced material life and regimented daily routines which saw work as a centrality. All this was overseen by management regimes frequently led by workhouse masters and mistresses, crucial yet understudied personalities in the administration of the Old Poor Law.