Long-term Workhouse Inmates in Penzance Union, Cornwall, 1861
In 1861, the Poor Law Board published a return of the name every adult pauper who had been a workhouse inmate for a continuous period of five years or more, together with the duration of their residence (in years and months), the reason for it, and whether they had been brought up in a District or separate Workhouse School. It was noted that the term 'District School' had been widely misinterpreted by respondents as meaning any school in the local area, such as a national or private school, and that there was only one instance in the whole report of an inmate actually having been in such a school.
| Name | Yrs | ms. | Reason | School |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eliza Phillips | 20 | 0 | Loss of one leg | no. |
| Elizabeth Matthews | 22 | 0 | Epilepsy | no. |
| Jane Barnes | 6 | 3 | Paralysis | no. |
| Sarah Triggs | 18 | 0 | Bodily infirmity | no. |
| Grace Warren | 5 | 9 | Inability to support herself and her two illegitimate children. | no. |
| Maria Hancock | 6 | 0 | Reduced from affluence to poverty through extravagance; bodily and mentally incapacitated for labour, | no. |
| Anne Jennings | 8 | 0 | Imbecility | no. |
| Anne Ellis | 6 | 0 | ditto | no. |
| Mary Grose | 21 | 0 | Bodily infirmity | no. |
| Ann Bryant | 13 | 0 | Imbecility | no. |
| Elizabeth Hart | 12 | 0 | Old age | no. |
| Prudence Thomas | 20 | 0 | Epilepsy and old age | no. |
| Philip Harvey | 15 | 0 | Paralysis | no. |
| Mary Ann Hyden | 20 | 0 | Epilepsy | no. |
| Martha Webb | 15 | 3 | Mental infirmity | workh. school. |
| Thomasine Snell | 6 | 6 | Blindness | no. |
| Anne Williams | 18 | 0 | Old age | no. |
| Grace Eddy | 8 | 0 | Inability to support herself and her two illegitimate children. | no. |
| James Dyer | 14 | 3 | Old age | no. |
| Eliza Trenyard | 7 | 0 | Partial blindness and imbecility | workh. school. |
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