Andover workhouse scandal
The scandal began with the revelation in August 1845 that inmates of the workhouse in Andover, Hampshire, England were driven by hunger to eat the marrow and gristle from (often putrid) bones which they were to crush to make fertilizer.
The committee found that the PLC – because of a power struggle between the commissioners and their secretary – had not conducted their business, as required by the act establishing them, by minuted meetings as a board; nor had adequate records been kept of their decisions and the reasons for them.
The Swing Riots – which had begun in Kent in June 1830 – finally broke out in Andover and the surrounding parishes on 19 November 1830, coinciding with the Annual Fair when the town was full with labourers.
On the afternoon of 20 November a mob of 300 labourers set off from the Angel Inn public house and attacked the Waterloo Ironworks in Anna Valley on the outskirts of the town, pulling down walls and part of the roof, smashing some half-made ploughs and damaging the foundry's crane and waterwheel.
By 15:00 on 21 November, The Times reported, "an immense multitude" had assembled in the town centre and, "flushed with liquor" proceeded to break down the gates of the gaol and release one of their leaders who had earlier been arrested.
Armed with clubs, staves and flails they threatened to burn down the properties of anybody who refused to give them money, saying that they had been "starving with their wives and families on potatoes and bread long enough.
The subsequent legislation, the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 passed easily through Parliament supported by the leadership of both main parties, the Whigs and the Tories.
It did not directly impose the recommended new regime, but set up the Poor Law Commission (PLC) as a central authority (with wide-ranging powers and minimal oversight by Parliament) to bring about the desired changes.
Even so, the centrally-sanctioned rations were strictly observed: "The Guardians under this Act dare not give one spoonful of porridge more to the inmates of a workhouse then their great three masters chose to order" was how the Revd G.S.
[13] Following the introduction of the new poor law regime in the South of England, the poor-rate fell by twenty per cent and the system was credited with having achieved this (and having made agricultural labourers less surly to their employers).
On 11 July 1835, at the first meeting of the Board of Guardians of the newly formed Andover Union, it was decided to commission the construction of a new workhouse "calculated to contain 400 persons."
[23] The sureties for the clerk were not called in, Lamb making up the shortfall from his own pocket:[c] the Poor Law Commission ordered that the Union's auditor be replaced.
[26] When the clerk was caught (some fifteen months later) and charged, his defence counsel spoke of a young man led astray by a general laxity and lack of supervision of the Union's money: he did not have to develop this theme because the charges against his client (as drafted) required proof that when he had been given money as an agent of the Union he had already formed the intent to embezzle it, and the prosecution had failed to produce evidence on that point.
[27] [d] Andover's new workhouse was designed by architect Sampson Kempthorne, using his standard "cruciform" plan which provided an entrance and administrative block at the east "containing the board-room, porter's quarters, a nursery and stores.
The master of the workhouse, Colin McDougal, was a Chelsea Pensioner and veteran of Waterloo with nearly thirty years service in the Royal Horse Artillery, ending as a staff sergeant:[29] his wife was matron.
[25][e] Munday had urged a subsequent board meeting to report the bone gnawing to the Poor Law Commission and ask for an inquiry, but this was rejected without a motion being formally put.
Mr Parker returned to Andover to hold hearings on these further charges;[40] after agreeing that the inquiry would be held in public, he adjourned proceedings for a week to give the master (who remained in post) time to prepare his defence.
Thomas Westlake, the medical officer, who had made these allegations then wrote to the Poor Law Commission making yet further allegations: that there had been persistent peculation to support the household of a married daughter of the master, and that McDougal had 'frequently taken liberties with the younger women and girls in this house, and attempted at various times to prevail upon them, by force or otherwise, to consent to gratify his wishes; that he has actually had criminal intercourse with some of the female inmates, and for a length of time has been guilty of drunkenness and other immoralities'[41] When the inquiry resumed, Parker refused to take any evidence on the additional charges until he had further instructions from the commission.
