The New Poor Law of 1834 was meant to make workhouse life harsher than the life of the poorest labourer outside, so that only the desperate would apply. At Andover, in Hampshire, it did more than that. A scandal in 1845 exposed a workhouse where the inmates were hungry enough to eat what they were meant to be grinding up.
The Horror
The Andover workhouse was built in 1836 on the west side of Junction Road, to Sampson Kempthorne’s standard cruciform plan. Its master was Colin McDougal, a former soldier who had fought at Waterloo and who, with his wife, ran the house harshly. Able-bodied men were mainly set to crush old bones into fertiliser, work that could be profitable for the workhouse.
In 1845 word spread that hungry men were eating scraps of marrow and gristle left on the bones. On 1 August 1845 the radical MP Thomas Wakley asked in the Commons about the bone crushing and about inmates fighting over bones. The Home Secretary, Sir James Graham, doubted the reports but promised an inquiry, and later dismissed the affair as a “workhouse squabble”.
Assistant Commissioner Henry Parker went to Andover the next day and found the allegations largely true. Rations were below the diet the Poor Law Commission itself prescribed. McDougal was accused of diverting provisions for private gain, of drunkenness and of sexual abuse of female inmates. He resigned on 29 September 1845. In October the Commissioners asked Parker, the man who had exposed the conditions, to resign, which drew angry criticism of the Commission.
The Legend
Rumour added darker details. One was that some of the bones came from churchyards. That has never been proved and is not part of the established record. The horse and dog bones sometimes mentioned are likewise reported, not documented here.
The Modern Relic
Parliament appointed a select committee on 5 March 1846. Its report, published in August, criticised the McDougals, the guardians, Parker and the Commissioners, and described the Commission’s conduct as irregular and arbitrary. In 1847 the Poor Law Commission was replaced by a Poor Law Board that answered more directly to Parliament. The scandal is named as one of the reasons for the change.
The building survives. It is Grade II listed. It was later used as an annexe of Cricklade College and has since been converted into homes, so it is a private residence and not a museum.
