The controversy over the workhouse system in the 1830s and 1840s In this essay I will study the sources F, G, H and I and I will use my knowledge to show why there was so much controversy over the workhouse system, in the 1830s and 1840s. Now that there was no relief in the open, the poor had to go to workhouses, such as Gressenhall. The hospice clothed and fed the poor. The poor were treated unfairly and lost their freedom. Due to these conditions many people had different opinions about the system, for or against, and this caused a lot of controversy. First Source F "The Rights of the Poor to Liberty and Life", written by Richard Oastler in 1836. Richard Oastler was a Yorkshire writer and member of the campaign against the Poor Law. This source is against the workhouse system. The proof of this is in the first sentence which states "infernal poor bastilles of the law". This word "Bastilles" is French for prisons. This shows that the writer thinks that the poor were kept in prison and treated as if they were in prison, like criminals. Furthermore, some additional words that maintain this view against the workhouse system are: "my wife has been taken from me, because I am poor, I will burn the whole pile to the foundation." This shows that the writer would not want to be in this situation and thinks it is unfair. This piece is about his wife being taken from him and represents the segregation of the two sexes. The Union Workhouse was not only to be a place where the able bodied man and his family could go in times of distress but also a receptacle for the sick, the aged, the bedridden, the orphans, the vagrants and the mentally ill . It was an institution for all those who could not exist alone in society, people who required constant and careful supervision, separating the poor into different classes, the Commissioners believed that the needs of each group could be adequately met: the elderly and the elderly people.