Anyone for Rat Pie?

At the Sessions House in Boston in 1908, Lucy Hodgson of Old Leake applied for an order of separation from her husband, Henry Hodgson, on account of his persistent cruelty. Henry came to court wearing a silk hat, a blazing red tie and white flowers in his button-hole and during the case made notes in a large notebook, with a long pencil, and throughout acted in a most extraordinary manner. He was accompanied in court by his two youngest children, a third, wearing Workhouse clothes, being with the mother.

Mr Gane, who appeared for the applicant, said the parties were married in March 1890, and from the first month of the marriage the woman's life had been one of continual misery. She had lived in a state of destitution. With the exception of one half pound there had not been a bit of butter in the house for twelve months, and for weeks and weeks together she and the children had had nothing in the way of meat. The disposition of Mr. Hodgson was almost beyond belief and when the court heard that he once went home with some rats, gave one to the cat and another to the dog and then told his wife to stuff others with sage and onions and cook them, and then gave them to his wife and children to eat, they hardly thought that he was in his right mind.

He had used actual physical violence on many occasions, and matters culminated when his wife left him and took one of the children with her and became chargeable to the Boston Union, and they had since been living in the Workhouse. The case had been taken in hand by charitable people in the neighbourhood, who were astounded and disgusted that any woman should receive such treatment at the hands of any man. After Mrs Hodgson and her son became chargeable to the Parish Mr Hodgson notified the fact by publishing on the side of his house that he had lost an old cow and a bull steer.

Mrs Hodgson said there were six children living - Lucy 19, Annie 17, Lizzie 15, Henry 13, Thomas 7 and Abigail 5. Before they had been married six weeks Mr Hodgson began ill treating her, and on and off he had continued to ill treat her during the whole of the time. On the day she left him he came home between 2 and 3 o'clock in the afternoon. She was not very well. She was sitting down sewing, and he said she would smother against the fire with the door shut. She at once got up and began sweeping the floor, and he went towards the fireplace and got the fire shovel and went towards her with it in a threatening attitude, and she was terrified and left the house. Hodgson then picked up a big butchers knife and put it on the table in front of him.

On one occasion he locked her out of doors until 11:30 at night, and on another he was beating young Henry in such a manner that she asked him to stop, when she pleaded for the boy Hodgson got the door bar and pushed her out of doors with it. He had frequently struck the children, especially Henry in her presence, without any reason whatsoever. He had pulled her by the hair of the head, on many occasions pulling the hair out, and he had thrown buckets and other utensils at her in a way to injure her. During the summer of 1907 she went out to work and she let him have most of the money she had earned. For several years they had been living in a state of destitution because he would not provide them with food to eat. They had often had to go without butter, tea and sugar.They did not always have meat in the house, sometimes they had been without for five or six weeks, and they had lived on bread and potatoes. Mr Hodgson was always at work, except on rainy days, and his wages averaged 18 shillings a week.

Mrs Hodgson said that Mr Hodgson, two years previously, had thrown a bucket at her, knocking out two of her teeth and breaking another one. She had always kept the house clean, and done the work in the garden that he ought to have done. She asked for the custody of the children because did not think they were safe with him. Previously, because Thomas was playing in the morning, he had made him sit on top of a cupboard, and she dare not interfere.

Mr Hodgson alleged that the house was in a filthy condition, and that he had been spending his time killing bugs and fleas and taking cobwebs down. The cobwebs, he said, were so thick that they would make wagon ropes for the whole parish.

The chairman said the bench were unanimous in granting a separation order, and gave Mrs Hodgson the custody of the children, and ordered Mr Hodgson to pay her seven shillings a week and the costs. Mr Hodgson said that he was very sorry to hear that. He added that he couldn't pay, saying that he only had Tuppence halfpenny, and if you can get any more you are a good fellow. I have offered her a good home, and I'm not going to pay. The mother and the three children left the court together and went to the workhouse.

Memories of Boston.

In 1914, Mr. James Faunt (then over eighty years old) of 10, Cornhill Lane looked back and told us of West Street in the old days.

West Street he said was largely a residential street and was one of the main arteries of the town but it also had the offices and warehouses of a great many of the business firms of Boston. The dwelling houses were frequently of great age and almost the last of them (a row of particularly old houses pictured below) were demolished and the Municipal Buildings built on the site in the early 1900's.

An old mansion house stood on the present site of the Co-operative Stores and nearby the business establishment of Mr. Norris had, in its rear, a garden forming part of a paddock from which the name of Paddock Grove arose. The paddock provided a feeding space for sheep and cattle but was also used by the children of the town as a playground.

Mr.William Mumford of 9, Tunnard Street who was 82 years old in 1914 also left us some good descriptions of the town. He was born in the neighbourhood of the Workhouse in Skirbeck Road and a few years later in about 1844 moved with his parents to West Street to a house at the rear of the shop of Mr. J.H. Clarke, a fruiterer, near the Primitive Methodist Chapel (below, near present day P.C. World).

Here his father had five acres of garden, a portion of which was destined to be the the site of the present railway of which he went to the opening of in 1848.

He also remembered seeing Queen Victoria passing through the town on a train, there were some pear trees near the station and he put a ladder against one of them and climbed it to get a good view. Passing on, he remarked that we should have seen the market when all the country lads came in the town in smock frocks or slops on, and with their braided waistcoats.

He remembered a time when there used to be dancing booths open all night, there was one at the Little Peacock he said, and they had a fiddler and a cornet player. He also said that there were some good boxers in those days recalling the names of Joe East and three of the Holden family. "Tom Holden was a little fellow of about 9 stones" he continued "and I once went down to the Scalp Marsh to see a fight between him and Joe East"

"I think Joe East had the hardest head of anyone, I have often seen him run butt at a wall with his head." He would shout "You can't hurt my head, I don't care how you hit it" "I have often seen him do it where the Rum Puncheon is (below, the present day Stump and Candle)."

There used to be some fine does at the Queens Head (just over Bargate bridge) and the London Tavern (opposite the present day Waterfront pub and both pictured below) he said.

They had a free and easy at the London Tavern every Thursday night and some good singers there were too, there was "Diggery" Pearson, he used to sing some queer songs, he was a comical card.

Finally Mr. Mumford tells us that years before he used to go down Tattershall Road to the race meeting, there were many flat races and for one event "trays" were put down for the horses to jump. He had seen hundreds of people on the high bank on one side of the course, where drinking booths were erected by various publicans.

Friary Skeletons

In July 1930 Harrison & Lewin (timber merchants) of Boston were excavating for the erection of new sheds on pasture land adjoining the Workhouse on Skirbeck Road when a human skeleton was discovered four feet six inches below the surface. The site of this discovery was the old St. Augustinian Friary.
Skeletons were fairly common discoveries in Boston and, during the previous twenty or thirty years to 1930 had been dug up in all parts of the town. Fydell Crescent, part of which was the site of the old Carmelite Friary, proved to be abundant with human remains. Skeletons were found in Fydell Crescent in 1926 at a depth of four feet and twenty years before that a large skull was discovered and claimed to be that of George Ripley, a noted member of the Carmelite Friars at Boston, and an alchemist, who at one time was hailed as the discoverer of the Philosopher’s Stone. He died in 1400, and was duly buried in the Friary. The Augustinian Friars site in Boston (where the 1930 skeleton was found) was founded by the Tilney family about the time of the building of St. Botolph’s Church and was purchased at the Dissolution by the Mayor and Burgesses.
As late as the 1850’s the land between the Workhouse and St. John’s cemetery (now the playground opposite the college car park) was still known as the Augustine Friar’s Pasture.

St.John's Workhouse

Prior to 1834, each parish had responsibility for looking after its own poor, which was a great drain on parish resources, and was, too often, managed inadequately. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1837 made provision for parishes to join together in a 'Union' and thus Union workhouses came into being. The Boston Union of 28 parishes was formed in 1836 and commissioned the building of St John's workhouse in Skirbeck Road to house 350 paupers in 1837.

The building was extended several times before workhouses were abolished in 1929 when it became an old people's home. It also served other functions, including HMS Arbella (for the Navy during the war), as a boy's school, a weights and measures office and a Civil Defence headquarters. Its final closure came in the1970s and most of the buildings were demolished in 1978 leaving Scott's grand gatehouse. This steadily fell into ruin until Heritage Lincolnshire restored and repaired the structure in 2001. The building, renamed Scott House is now owned by Lincolnshire County Council and operates as a resource centre for adults with physical disabilities.

The true face of the workhouse

Letter sent from an Inmate in Boston Workhouse "When I was a child and became orphaned in 1916, along with several brothers and sisters, I was deposited at that 'place' in Skirbeck Road then known as the workhouse, or Poor law Institution. And a more heartless, cold, inhuman place for parentless children to live in is hard to imagine. In the children's section the regime was unfeeling and harsh, the building was prison-like.

I remember the flagstone floor of our living room (which we children sometimes had to wash), the playground, or exercise yard, also surfaced with flagstones, enclosed by a high brick wall.
We were always hungry, a condition somewhat relieved when the boys of nine years old upwards graduated to the men's quarters, where there were better opportunities to leave the dining hall with slices of bread up one's jumper, to be augmented after dark by slipping out of the bathroom window into the garden and returning with carrots, turnips, apple, pears etc. What a tucking we often had in our dormitory. If you've read any escape stories you will know what I mean!
To return to the beginning. In the first few weeks of my incarceration the harshness hit me so hard (I was six at the time) that I ran away (or shall I say escaped) and made the journey of nine miles back to the old family home at Wigtoft.
That did not have a happy outcome, so my next escape was in the direction of Freiston Shore. Another failure. After that I just had to grin and bear it, but forever after when I think of my life in the workhouse I think also of Wormwood Scrubs, Colditz, The Lubianka, Oliver Twist - they all go together. "
Source: Sent in by Janet Corney

The Workhouse

In February 1911, a writer on “Tramp life” stayed in the Workhouse at Boston for a night and described his experience. He said the institution was known to the ordinary tramp as a Spike, a Grubber or a Derrick. The bed is a Lay down, and the food supplied termed Scran, Tommy, Rooty or Grub.
“Now, Boston Spike,” an old man said to him as they trudged along the Spalding Road, “is a good un. It’s a fine lay down, an’ you could stand yer spoon up in the skilly (referring to the thickness of the porridge). On entry into Boston Workhouse (pictured below) he found himself in the company of nearly a dozen vagrants. Some were very old, one claiming to have been 40 years on the road. Others were younger, one a stripling of eighteen, having been released the day before from Lincoln Prison.

When the reporters turn came, he gave the porter his name, age, occupation, place journeyed from and destination, also he handed over his pipe, tobacco and matches etc. for smoking was strictly prohibited in the workhouse.
Next he had to take a bath, which he didn’t mind but as one tramp expressed it “When you get a bath every night for a fortnight, you’re likely to be washed away,” while another said, “it let the cowd awful in his bones”.
Then he went to his bed in a small, cell like room with three rugs as a covering. His supper consisted of 8 ounces of bread and a drink of hot water, and he said that he slept well.
About 6. 30 a.m. the next morning he was woken and ordered to dress and by 7. 00 a.m. had received his breakfast, a pint of the famous Boston “skilly” with 6 ounces of bread, and an hour later he was paraded for work.
At about 11’o’ clock, after 3 hours of either breaking stones, picking oakum, sawing wood or gardening they were all released. Once outside the gates, pipes were produced, and a smoke indulged in, then the motley crowd set out on their ways.
In concluding his article he stated that Boston Tramp Ward amply fulfilled all the requirements set forth by the Local Government Board, he praised all the officials and said the rooms were very clean.