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PARISH POORHOUSE & WORKHOUSE
Christchurch, Dorset
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The red brick building which houses the Red House Museum and Gardens and lends it its name was erected in 1763 as the parish poorhouse, and later as its workhouse. Eventually, the number of inmates exceeded the space available and in 1880 a new workhouse was built in Fairmile, later to become Christchurch Hospital.

Here the town's poor were provided with relief knitting stockings and making fusee chains to pay for their upkeep. It was the children of the town's poor were employed making fusee chains - the tiny links which where contained within the mechanisms of Victorian pocket watches, sent to the watchmakers of London and Liverpool.

The fusee chains were also made in a factory, still standing in Bargates, which was owned by William Hart. Mr. Hart's son, Edward, learnt taxidermy from his father and opened a museum in the High Street for which hundreds of birds were shot. Many cases he prepared are now displayed at the museum.


The adavnces in surgery which were made during the 18th and 19th centuries required the study of anatomy which was scarcely possible as the only legal source of cadavers in Britain were the victims of the hangman's noose. This led to the widespread robbing of corpses from graveyards by organised gangs of 'Ressurectionists' for anatomical study.

Edinburgh was the centre for the study of medicine and anatomy and two local doss-house owners, William Burke and William Hare, saw the opportunity to make a fortune by murdering thier transient guests to provide fresh bodies for dissection which would not be missed. They could not meet the demand and greed caused them to embark on the murder of local people and led to their capture by the authorities.

So great was the public outcry following these events that parliament was forced to pass an Act in 1834 allowing the unclaimed bodies of the inmates of the copuntry's poorhouses to be used for dissection.

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