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Cheltenham Workhouse 1891 census return page 1
From the 1851 census onwards, special enumeration books were used for institutions such as workhouses, army barracks and hospitals. The results are included in the usual returns, so you need to know where the institution was located, in order to check the right enumeration district. Workhouse census can be desperately sad things to browse. A quick glance reveals mostly elderly people who can no longer work of those suffering from physical or mental illness. In this example the oldest person is Edward Averiss, an ‘ag-lab’ aged 79 (on line 2), while the youngest is Henry Birt, aged 11, and described as an ‘Idiot from childhood’ (on line 24). Looking at those with mental illness, seven people here as listed in that category, almost a third of the total. Married couples can also be seen as well, such as John & Rhoda Bayliss, aged 71 and 69 (on lines 19 & 20). Families were often taken in as a group and an example here is the family of the already mentioned Henry Birt, who was in the workhouse with his mother Ann and his siblings Charles and Mary-Ann.
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