NEWPORT BRANCH MEETING, 2023 March 28

The Newport Workhouse by Monty Dart

Our speaker was one of our most regular and popular, Monty Dart. She has an ancestral relationship with the Newport Workhouse as her father, uncle and two aunts were one-time inmates. Monty herself worked at St Woolos Hospital when it had taken over the buildings at Woolaston House where the workhouse has been located.

Generally we associate Workhouses as sombre or even dreadful places. Monty, however, showed newspaper reports where the Newport one was praised for cleanliness, good food, helpful and diligent staff and the opportunity given to inmates to obtain trade training. Her two aunts gained such experience as domestics and received help in emigrating to Canada to start a new and employed life.