Before the 1830s, care for the poor in the Huddersfield area was managed locally at the township level through small-scale poorhouses or workhouses. These institutions provided basic shelter and subsistence for paupers who were unable to support themselves. The Huddersfield township workhouse, for example, was located in Birkby and could house up to 60 inmates. Other townships with similar provisions included Almondbury, Kirkheaton, Lockwood, Honley, Lepton, Golcar, Linthwaite and Marsden. Each facility operated independently, with conditions and capacity varying widely depending on local resources and attitudes towards the poor.
In 1834, the Poor Law Amendment Act drastically changed this system. It created larger administrative units known as Poor Law Unions, each run by an elected Board of Guardians. These Unions were responsible for building and managing large, centralised workhouses. The aim was to deter people from seeking relief by making the experience of being in a workhouse as unpleasant as possible. Inmates were separated into categories: men, women, children, and people with mental illness (referred to at the time as "lunatics"). Families were often split up and forbidden from interacting once admitted.
The Huddersfield Poor Law Union was formed in January 1837. It became one of the largest in the country, covering 32 townships across four parishes and serving a population of approximately 90,000. While some of the earlier local workhouses continued to operate, they were often enlarged to accommodate the increasing numbers of people in need, reflecting the scale of poverty in the growing industrial towns.
Conditions inside these workhouses were grim. Life was highly regimented, with strict rules, a bland and meagre diet, and hard physical labour. Work was deliberately repetitive and degrading—such as breaking stones, picking oakum (unravelling old rope), or scrubbing floors—to discourage reliance on public assistance. The buildings were cold, overcrowded, and poorly ventilated, and disease spread quickly. Privacy was virtually non-existent, and emotional trauma was common, especially for children and families who were separated. Despite being intended as a form of social welfare, the workhouse system was often experienced by the poor as a form of punishment.
“The overseers… are forced to the conclusion that the sick poor have most shamefully neglected; that they have been and still are devoid of the necessary articles of clothing and bedding; that they have been suffered to remain for weeks at a time in the most filthy and disgusting state; that patients have been allowed to remain for nine weeks together without a change of linen or of bed clothing: that beds in which patients suffering in typhus have died, one after another, have been again and again and repeatedly used for fresh patients, without any change or attempt at purification; that the said beds were only bags of straw and shavings, for the most part laid on the floor, and that the whole swarmed with lice” -Huddersfield Overseers’ report about Huddersfield Township Workhouse, Birkby (1848).
“There are forty children occupying one room eight yards by five; that these children sleep four, give, six, seven, and even ten, in one bed” - Second Huddersfield Overseers’ report about Huddersfield Township Workhouse.
By 1866, the Kirkheaton workhouse was still in use and housed a small number of paupers: 2 men, 16 boys, 6 women, 21 girls, and 2 infants. The building itself was outdated and lacked basic features like proper ventilation, contributing to poor living conditions for its residents.
“20th March 1866. I have this day examined the children in this house. A few of them read pretty fairly, but I cannot say that they are in any respect in an advanced state, nor does the standard of their education at all approach that which has been reached in the large majority of unions in this county… they never read the bible in school” - Her Majesty’s Inspector of Union Schools inspecting Kirkheaton Workhouse (1866) E. H. Wodehouse.
As pressure grew to improve the poor conditions of outdated and overcrowded local workhouses, larger and more modern facilities were commissioned. This resulted in the construction of Deanhouse Workhouse at Netherthong in 1862, followed by Crosland Moor Workhouse in 1872. Both were eventually repurposed as hospitals.
Deanhouse Workhouse, designed by Huddersfield architect John Kirk, was built between 1861 and 1862. It was initially intended to accommodate around 200 inmates, with an additional casual ward added shortly after to house a further 20 people. These new buildings reflected a more institutional approach to poverty, with strict rules, segregation by gender and age, and harsh living conditions.
Children living in these workhouses were often required to work in nearby textile mills in exchange for food and shelter. This practice highlights how workhouses not only provided relief but also supplied cheap, often exploited labour to the region’s booming industries.
“The mill-owners communicated with the overseers of the poor, and when the demand and supply had been arranged to the satisfaction of both contracting parties, a day was fixed for the examination of the children by the mill-owner, or his agent, previous to which, the authorities of the workhouse had instilled into their young minds the notion that by entering the mills their position in life would be much improved. On the day appointed the children were drawn up to be inspected and selected; those chosen were then conveyed by coach, by wagon, or boat, to their destination, and as a rule, from that moment were lost to their parents and relations for ever.” - History of the Factory Movement (1888) W.R Croft
Workhouses reflect key aspects of Victorian attitudes toward poverty, discipline, and the use of labour.
At the heart of the system was the belief that poverty was often the result of laziness or moral failure, rather than structural inequality or lack of opportunity.
This led to the design of workhouses as intentionally harsh environments — the idea was to make them so unpleasant that only the truly desperate would seek help. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, attitudes towards poverty and welfare began to shift, and the workhouse system came under increasing criticism for its harshness and failure to address the root causes of poverty.
The Local Government Act of 1929 marked a major turning point. It abolished the Boards of Guardians and transferred responsibility for poor relief to local councils. Many workhouses were renamed as Public Assistance Institutions and repurposed for other uses, often as hospitals, care homes, or public housing.