At the beginning of the eighteenth-century workhouses like the one in Bradford, Yorkshire were set up mainly to cater for the adult and able-bodied poor but increasingly catered for young children, orphans, old men and women and the mentally ill. The Bradford workhouse catered for up to seventy inmates and at times conditions could be deplorable. The harsh system of the workhouse became synonymous with terrible conditions, forced child labour, long hours, malnutrition, beatings and neglect.
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