Ongar, Essex Poor Law Union

History
A parliamentary report of 1777 recorded parish workhouses in operation at

Lamborne (for up to 40 ) Navestock (25) and Willingale Spain (12).

The Ongar workhouse was built in 1830 at Stanford Rivers. Serving an incorporation of nine parishes, and accommodating around 100 inmates, it was one of the last workhouses to be built before the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. Its most distinctive feature was its central hub, from whose windows the workhouse master could obtain a clear view of the inmates in their various exercise yards. This was still a relatively novel feature — other early examples can be found in the Caistor workhouse of 1801, and the Thurgarton Incorporation workhouse of 1824. However, at Ongar, the hub projected only at the rear of the main building.

Ongar Poor Law Union formally came into existence on 8th April 1836. In 1837, the new Ongar Union purchased the existing workhouse building from the incorporation for the sum of £4,416. Over the following three years, it was enlarged to increase its capacity to over 200 in the 3-storey building. A workhouse school was built in 1871 in addition to the building of a Workhouse infirmary( a conversion of an existing building with additional storey and extension). The workhouse closed in 1920 and the then inmates were moved to the workhouse in Epping. In 1926, the building was taken over by Piggott Brothers, a tent and flag manufacturers.

Constituent Parishes
Abbess Roding, Essex Beauchamp Roding, Essex Berners Roding, Essex Blackmore, Essex Bobbingworth, Essex Chipping Ongar, Essex Doddinghurst, Essex Fyfield, Essex Greenstead, Essex High Laver, Essex High Ongar, Essex Kelvedon Hatch, Essex Lambourne with Abridge, Essex Little Laver, Essex Moreton, Essex Navestock, Essex Norton Mandeville, Essex Shelley, Essex Shellow Bowells, Essex Stanford Rivers, Essex Stapleford Abbotts, Essex Stapleford Tawney, Essex Stondon Massey, Essex Theydon Mount, Essex Willingale Doe, Essex Willingale Spain, Essex

Records

 * Essex Record Office, Wharf Road Chelmsford CM2 6YT. Relatively few records survive. Holdings include: Guardians' minute books (1836-1930); Relief order books (1911-12, 1922-31).
 * Records for the Union are held at Essex Record Office reference G/On Title [ONGAR UNION] The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 removed responsibility for the poor from parishes (see D/P.../11-18) and transferred administration to Boards of Guardians of the Poor. The Guardians administered groups of parishes or Poor Law UNIONs. Each UNION had its own workhouse. In 1872 the Public Health Act created urban and rural sanitary authorities, with the Guardians constituted as the rural sanitary authority for those parts of each UNION not in an urban sanitary authority. The Local Government Act of 1894 replaced rural sanitary authorities with rural district councils (see D/R). The Local Government Act of 1929 abolished the Boards of Guardians and transferred their powers to the Public Assistance Committees of County Council (for minutes of Essex County Council Public Assistance Committee 1929-1948 see C/MPa 1-22) Many of the workhouse infirmaries continued as hospitals after 1930, continuing after the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948. For other records illustrating the work of the Guardians see D/P.../19. For orders, directions and declarations of Poor Law Commissioners responsible for grouping parishes into UNIONs, 1835-1837, see Q/RSW 2-5. For catalogue of correspondence between Poor Law UNIONs and Poor Law Commission (later Poor Law Board and Local Government Board) 1834-1900 see List and Index Society vol. 56. G. Cuttle The Legacy of the Rural Guardians (Heffer, 1934 E.R.O. Library 362.50942) provides a good account of the work of the Guardians in six mid-Essex UNION, together with the newscutting he collected and used in writing the book (T/P 181). For analysis of ledgers see Journal of the Society of Archivists 11, pp. 367-369. ONGAR UNION consisted of the parishes of Blackmore, Bobbingworth, Doddinghurst, Fyfield, Greenstead-juxta-ONGAR, Kelvedon Hatch, Lambourne, High Laver, Little Laver, Moreton, Navestock, Norton Mandeville, Chipping ONGAR, High ONGAR, Abbess Roding, Beauchamp Roding, Berners Roding, Shelley, Shellow Bowells, Stanford Rivers, Stapleford Abbotts, Stapleford Tawney, Stondon Massey, Theydon Mount, Willingale Doe, Willingale Spain

Websites
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Ongar/Ongar.shtml