Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward

Many resisted taking up permanent residence at the workhouse, where men and women would be separated, and would be required to work to pay for their board and lodging; once they entered, many only left when they died.

Instead, from 1864, if the police in London certified that a person was genuinely in need, they could stay for one night on a "casual" basis, and leave the next morning, but they would have to queue up again for temporary admission the next evening.

The apparent reasons for the plight of the poor people depicted vary – one may be a drunkard, there is an old man, a father holding his son's hand, an unaccompanied woman (perhaps a widow) with a child, and an invalid soldier in his redcoat.

Most critics praised the work for its simplicity, truthfulness of characterisation, and lack of easy sentimentality, but others criticised it for the same reasons, condemning its squalor and hopelessness, and rejecting it as a suitable subject for a painting in an art gallery.

Nevertheless, it became very popular with the viewing public, so much that a barrier was erected to keep back the crowd – an accolade rarely accorded: previous examples include David Wilkie's Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch in 1822, and William Powell Frith's The Derby Day in 1858 and The Salon d'Or, Homburg in 1871.