I've never come across this term in relation to workhouses. The most
common popular term for the workhouse was "the union" or very
occasionally "the grubber". The "spike" really only referred to the
casual ward. I don't Cranbrook (the union to which Benenden belonged)
had much of a vagrant population - the 1881 census doesn't identify any
as such, and they certainly wouldn't have kept a lamp burning all night.
There are a couple of child inmates there from Benenden in the census
though.
Peter Higginbotham
(workhouses.org.uk)
Brian Read wrote:
> It seems quite likely to me that 'the lamp" was a local euphemism for
> the hated and feared workhouse. Here in Oxfordshire the word
> 'workhouse' did not seem to be used much except in official documents.
> The RDC held their meetings in the workhouse boardroom and members
> always referred to the workhouse as "this house". A local solicitor told
> me it was called "the spike" in his younger days (which is what George
> Orwell called it in the 1920s when he spent the night in one). I think
> there was probably an all-night lamp (gas?) burning at the door of the
> one in question, perhaps because of a large intake of tramps every
> evening. It's also worth noting that early in the 20th century the word
> 'workhouse' was changed by Parliament to 'Poor Law Institution' -
> further evidence that the word tended to be shunned.
> Brian Read
>
>
> On 27 Oct 2008, at 13:23, David and Gill Foster wrote
>
>> Hello
>> As the context seems to be medical could this have been heat or UV
>> light treatment? I'm sure I've seen something about this in connection
>> with the London Hospital.
>>
>> David Foster
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ernie pollard wrote:
>>> Another puzzle, if only to me?
>>> A Victorian school log book for Benenden National School in Kent has
>>> recently been found. It includes on 6 June 1879 -
>>> "Several children away – some at the lamp some with chicken pox some
>>> with whooping cough"
>>> Does anybody know what "at the lamp" means. The writing is very clear.
>>> Ernie Pollard
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
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>>>
>>
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