CAMBRIDGE

Failure of the General Workhouse Scheme of 1727

Matters were complicated at Cambridge by the existence of fourteen small parishes, with populations varying, in 1728, from 181 in Little St Andrew's to 720 in Great St Mary's.

In most of these parishes there were either almshouses or cottages serving much the same purpose as the poorhouses of the rural parishes. St Clement's, Great St Mary's, St Edward's, St Bene't's and Holy Trinity all had buildings of this type during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

The harsher attitude adopted towards poverty, and the popular discussion of the subject of workhouses, gradually led to the practice of reserving almshouses for the shelter of those who had met with “unmerited” misfortune. It was clear, moreover, that these little buildings were unsuited to the conduct of any organised industry. The inequality of parochial rates within the town was still a bone of contention. The mere adoption of the Act of 1723 would not meet this situation, nor would it necessarily counteract the inefficient administration of certain overseers. Efforts were consequently directed to obtaining a special Local Act.

In November 1727 the Mayor and aldermen got so far as to arrange a series of meetings to consider “about obtaining an Act of Parliament for the Erecting and Establishing a publick Workhouse in this Town, and about the Corporacon revenues to be collected in a better method”.