Healthcare

All workhouses had an infirmary for inmates who were ill, and often an isolation ward for those who were thought to be infectious. Nursing standards were variable: many workhouses had some nursing staff who lived in, but some care was provided by inmates who might be illiterate and have no nursing experience. There would be a doctor who visited when necessary. Abingdon records indicate that there was usually one or more salaried nurses living in, and a medical officer and other nurses on the payroll.

Outside the workhouse a visit to the doctor had to be paid for, and this was often beyond the means of poor families. The workhouse often provided the only free medical care available in the area. In addition, poor housing conditions meant that families seldom had the facilities to care for someone who was ill. Consequently doctors would direct people in need of nursing care to the workhouse, which acted as a local hospital.

Mental illness

There was often no distinction made between mental illness and learning difficulties, and people suffering from either would be housed together in the workhouse. Early censuses would characterise people in the terminology of the time, as 'idiot' or 'lunatic'. Laurie Liddiard recalled a man being brought in by the police: he had tried to murder his father, and had been arrested at Radley Station. He was certified by the doctor and taken 'to Moulsford' - by which he meant the Fairmile Hospital, which had been built in 1870 near Moulsford as the 'County Lunatic Asylum for Berkshire'. (It was closed in 2003 and converted into apartments.)

Births

The medical facilities were also needed for maternity care. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, families often disowned unmarried mothers, and a single woman who was pregnant or had a child would find it almost impossible to get work and earn a living. They were often forced to enter the workhouse for food and shelter and care during the birth - hence the numbers of baptisms recorded in the records of the chapel. Doctors also referred women to the workhouse specifically for maternity care: Laurie Liddiard remembered a woman from Kingston Bagpuize entering the workhouse just to have her 13th child - she brought several of her younger children with her.

Deaths

The presence of so many sick people inevitably meant that there were many workhouse deaths. The Abingdon workhouse had a mortuary somewhere near the perimeter wall, and Laurie Liddiard, the Master's Clerk, was paid half a crown (two shillings and sixpence) for helping the Abingdon undertaker, Mr Barratt, to lift the bodies into coffins. The dead would be buried in a pauper's grave in Abingdon Cemetery.

In 1881 there were 139 inmates, with an average age of 74 years. Fifty of the inmates were dead within 10 years.