Workhouse orphan Oliver Twist, one of Charles Dickens\u2019 best-known creations, famously gets into trouble for daring to ask for second helpings of food.<\/p>\n
Researching the life of George Fawell<\/strong> (born Dacre, Westmorland<\/strong>, 1821; died 1905 Bolton, Lancashire) uncovers a little about what workhouse inmates might expect on their plate.<\/p>\n George was a committed Christian, a teetoaller, a Sunday school superintendant, and a supporter of self-improvement movements. The son of a Westmorland farmer\/parish clerk, he clearly believed in encouraging the working class to better themselves in life by education. He was also a staunch Conservative.<\/p>\n He married, in Bolton in 1845, Mary Helsby, who bore him seven daughters and six sons, before dying in 1867, aged just 46.<\/p>\n His Christian fortitude must also have been tested by the terrible grief of losing eight of the children in infancy, the two youngest, Louisa and William, dying on the same day: Sept 23, 1866. Louisa was aged three years nine months, and William two years six months.<\/p>\n But it is thanks to George Fawell\u2019s grocery business life that we learn something about the workhouse \u2013 specifically Bolton Workhouse, but surely typical of all at that time.<\/p>\n The workhouse Board of Guardians met regularly, and among topics of debate and decision were tenders for workhouse supplies.<\/p>\n In March 1881, for instance, Messrs George Fawell and Son, Fold-street, Bolton, won the tender to supply finest linseed meal, at 21 shillings per hundredweight.<\/p>\n George Fawell also won the contract to supply Colman\u2019s Mustard, and Colman\u2019s starch.<\/p>\n Other tenders agreed were for: black lead; soft soap; rice; American cheese; pale soap; best currants; Sultana raisins; Scotch treacle; Scotch barley; moist sugar; best cube lump sugar; and best beef and mutton; coal; new milk; sweet milk; butter milk; fresh butter; Sutcliffe\u2019s fine flour; Ormskirk flour; Hartley\u2019s flour; blue peas; Indian corn; scrubbing brushes; sweeping brushes; blue worsted; woollen scouring flannel; men’s moleskin suits; men\u2019s corded suits (trousers brown, jacket and vest black), and; men\u2019s vests (black) and trousers (brown).<\/p>\nPlease Sir, can I have some more?<\/h2>\n