Finally identified, the real Oliver Twist workhouse reveals stories more brutal than even Dickens dared tell
By Dr Ruth Richardson
UPDATED:11:49 GMT, 25 March 2011

Please sir: Oliver Twist brought home the harsh realities of life in the workhouse
The young woman at the workhouse gate was desperate. Clutching her belly, she begged to be allowed inside. She had nowhere else to go.
The workhouse — for all the stories of cruelty that went on within its walls — was her only hope. She desperately needed shelter, for she was about to give birth. But the gatekeeper was inexorable: he had his orders.
Babies were expensive. They required feeding, clothing and supervising and it would be at least six years before they could earn their keep, either in the workhouse or in factories, mills or up chimneys.
The workhouse authorities had a duty to care for mothers in such a desperate plight. They were paid by the parish to house and clothe the wretched men, women and children who came to their doors as a last resort. For few would reside in the workhouse by choice. The conditions made prison seem comfortable in comparison.
But the Beadle — the supervisor of the workhouse — cared less for the law than for his own pockets. He could make a small profit from able-bodied adults and children by setting them to work outside the workhouse, while he siphoned off some of the money that was supposed to feed them.
Babies, on the other hand, were not profitable. The workhouse gate clanged shut.
It was a bitterly cold day and a harsh wind was whistling up Cleveland Street, in the Georgian suburbs of North London. A crowd began to gather as the young woman went into labour on the pavement. They all knew that no newborn baby could survive long in such circumstances.
‘The infant perished during this inhuman scene,’ a local newspaper reported afterwards. What became of the unhappy mother