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Despite the horror that poorhouses conjured, the ingenuity of the poor and disabled and their resilience often undermined reformers’ plans. Constitution against “involuntary servitude,” poorhouses became technically “voluntary,” like today’s homeless shelters. Some people who were convicted of drinking or loitering could still be forced into an institution, but by the late nineteenth century, these were usually workhouses or houses of correction. The ambiguity of an institution once coercive but later voluntary led to interesting stories.
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People convicted of relatively minor crimes were also sent to almshouses, as were orphaned, abused, and neglected children. Almshouses were often operated in conjunction with a farm, and they met costs through the sale of farm produce. Almshouses generally have charitable status and aim to support the continued independence of their residents. There is an important delineation between almshouses and other forms of sheltered housing in that almshouse residents generally have no security of tenure, being solely dependent upon the goodwill of the administering trustees. Many almshouses are European Christian institutions though some are secular.[3] Almshouses provide subsidised accommodation, often integrated with social care resources such as wardens. The project of building the Almshouse began in 1871 when County Commissioners purchased property in the village of Texas, Maryland, from Dr. John Galloway.
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Scandalous conditions of the workhouses inspired wealthy philanthropists to endow almshouses, generally for their local area and in groups of 6-12 dwellings. It is estimated that some 30% of current almshouses were founded during this period. Housing for inmates at the Almshouse was rigidly segregated by race and gender. The County built the "Pest House" (short for pestilence), a small structure down the hill from the main home, to quarantine residents with contagious diseases. Far more often, the Pest House served as segregated housing for African American men.
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Most of the American-born residents in 1946 came from Maryland, but eighteen were natives of other US states. Some residents registered under partial or false names—a "Daniel Boone" entered on October 1, 1891, and the facility admitted a "Napolean Bonaparte" on June 12, 1899—reflecting the distressed circumstances that sent them to the Almshouse. Some unfortunates came to the Almshouse only in death, to be buried in unmarked graves in the potter’s field on the grounds. The best-performing almshouses in the study, Charterhouse and Morden College, bestowed a longevity boost on residents equivalent to that enjoyed by those in the second highest socioeconomic quintile. S. Eliot might have said, are both contained in the future of Britain’s flourishing almshouses.
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In many cases the objective was to ensure the wishes of the benefactor were carried out in perpetuity. Such endowments are incredible assets that the overwhelming majority of charities are, sadly, unable to rely on. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1692, this has to be the kingdom’s highest profile almshouse. Over the last three centuries, it has given sanctuary to more than 25,000 residents, known as Chelsea Pensioners, who are old soldiers.
By the middle of 1500s, there were about 800 medieval hospitals spread across the country but the dissolution of the monasteries meant that many were either sold off to landowners or left to ruin. It was during the late sixteenth century that the medieval craft guilds founded many hospitals to provide care for the “elderly decayed” members in their declining years. Today, links with the City Livery Companies remain strong, with many still retaining their own almshouses. The Bakewell Almshouses in Derbyshire, England – dating from 1709 – were six separate homes, hence the six front doors visible today. Each home had one tiny room downstairs and one upstairs, with no bathroom, toilet or kitchen. The Manners family, Dukes of Rutland from 1703, maintained the building until 1920.
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Originally called hospitals or bede houses, in the sense of hospitality and shelter. The oldest almshouse foundation still in existence is thought to be the Hospital of St Oswald in Worcester founded circa 990. It is believed that the then Bishop of Worcester (St Oswald) created this sanctuary where the brothers could “minister to the sick, bury the dead, relieve the poor and give shelter to travellers who arrived after the city gates had closed at night”. At its simplest, an almshouse is an endowed institution providing residential support for the elderly poor. Some might insist that residents demonstrate a connection with a local area, church congregation, trade or craft or military service.
Within living memory, the Black Brothers were expected to fag for the Red Brothers — a system that has now been abolished. Only men are taken at St Cross — a tradition that reflects medieval practice, although it is of surprisingly recent date in its present iteration. Within living memory, St Cross used to take married couples, but reverted to its original, all-male condition because Winchester has a second almshouse, St John’s, which welcomes women.
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The founding of the State Lunacy Commission in the early 1890s marked growing concern over the treatment of the mentally ill and disabled. Those considered "insane," who in an earlier era might have lived in an almshouse, were increasingly placed in "asylums." As retirement communities and nursing homes became more common over the twentieth century, the need for almshouses declined further. In 1958, Baltimore County officials closed the historic facility, citing costs. New York City’s Almshouse history dates back to the colonial era, when poverty and regular outbreaks of measles and smallpox overtook its streets. Greater care and responsibility of the city’s poor and sick, along with their dependents, was needed.
They represent the indigent and the mentally ill people buried anonymously at the State Farm Cemetery Annex grounds from 1875 through the early 1900s, and they will now be part of the Training School’s curriculum. The sisters ran the Almshouses themselves until Sarah Hibbert died in 1869, when The Hibbert Almshouse Charity, which had been established in 1864, became responsible. One skull was left unadorned so that museum visitors could view the underlying bone structure. The other skull was made to look like a face, an image of what the almshouse resident might have looked like based on his bone structure. Of those excavated, nine skulls were intact enough to sculpt a three-dimensional facial reconstruction.
Whether you were a once-prosperous man who was hurt in an accident or a poor woman who had an illegitimate child, you needed to go to your town or city’s Overseers of the Poor, who would judge whether you were “deserving” or “worthy” enough to secure some minimal aid. They also examined whether you were a person deemed “settled” in the particular town or city. Overseers of the Poor were local officials, like selectman or freeholders, who usually knew little or nothing of poverty but came from the middle or even upper classes. From the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth century, almshouses offered food, shelter, clothing, and medical care to the poorest and most vulnerable, often in exchange for hard labor and forfeiture of freedom. Those who entered the Philadelphia region’s almshouses, willingly or unwillingly, rarely accepted this exchange and often protested their treatment or blatantly defied authority. According to Mae Architects, Harriet Hardy House is designed as a "21st-century almshouse", which is traditionally a type of low-cost sheltered housing provided by a private charity.
The almshouses are the homes of the residents and are therefore not generally open to the public. However, it is possible to visit the medieval hospital building by arrangement. There is usually a member of staff on hand to assist visitors, and an information booklet available for purchase. The timber-framed building consists of six massive oak bays, with a kingpost roof more than 40 feet high and a chapel at the east end. The Blockley Almshouse, the white building in the left of this image, opened in 1835, serving as a replacement for the recently closed Bettering House. It sought to avoid the same fate as the Bettering House by completely institutionalizing the poor.
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