In the Workhouse - Margaret Wynne Nevinson
In the Workhouse was written in 1911 by women’s suffrage campaigner and workhouse visitor Margaret Wynne Nevinson. It dramatized the fact that a husband could force his wife to stay with him in a workhouse, a regulation based on the law of Coverture — the long-held principle that no female person had her own legal identity. The play caused a stir which helped lead to a change in the law in 1913.
The text of the play can be viewed here, while an online reading of the play is available on YouTube.
Nevinson also wrote Workhouse Characters, and Other Sketches of the Life of the Poor.
For US readers 
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