The Metropolitan Asylums Board
In the 1860s, increasing concern about the state of London's workhouses, and in particular their medical facilities, led to pressure for changes in their management. In 1865, things came to a head when the medical journal The Lancet published revealed the appalling conditions in many workhouse infirmaries. Two years later, in 1867, the Metropolitan Poor Act was passed and the care on London's sick poor was brought under the care of a new body, the Metropolitan Asylums Board. Some reorganisation of London's unions was carried out, and all unions were now required to provide hospital accommodation on sites separate from the workhouse. The MAB eventually established around forty of its own institutions for the care the city's fever, smallpox, and tuberculosis patients, and for what were then termed "imbeciles". In the 1880s, access to the MAB's institutions was gradually opened up to all of London's inhabitants, effectively becoming England's first state hospitals.
.Bibliography
- Slack, Paul. The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, 1990, CUP.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice English Poor Law History, 1927, Longmans, Green & Co., London.
- Webb, Sidney and Beatrice English Poor Law Policy, 1910, Longmans, Green & Co., London.
For US readers 
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