"idlers" - 1 õppematerjal

Victorian life - Briti ajalugu

So in 1834 a law was passed in the Parliament that resulted in building workhouses to accommodate and give jobs to people who couldn't support themselves financially. Also in the workhouses were orphaned (children without parents) and abandoned children, the physically and mentally sick, the disabled, the elderly and unmarried mothers. The idea of workhouses was kind of good, but in reality, there were several problems with them. The government, terrified of encouraging 'idlers' (lazy people), made sure that people feared the workhouse and would do anything to keep out of it. The problems included poor education system for children(teachers uninspired and low paid, children weren't taught reading and writing), physically demanding jobs(breaking rocks and so on; very detrimental to health) and long, 10-hour workdays; women, children and men had different living and working areas in the workhouse, so families were split up. To make things