This article uses a microhistorical approach to investigate the “workhouse experience” of a single pauper in late nineteenth-century London. Its subject is Frank Burge, a remarkably prolific (though by no means unique) correspondent who wrote several lengthy letters of complaint from the Poplar workhouse to the Local Government Board (the central poor law authority) between 1884 and 1885. It places these letters, and the official responses they stimulated, alongside other public and official documents and uses a blended methodological approach to uncover a rich narrative of hardship, struggle, and personal agency. In doing so, it argues that, in contrast to more orthodox histories of welfare, it is only through this kind of painstaking and sensitive historical reconstruction that we truly can understand the nature, and the legacy, of poverty and the “workhouse experience” on the nineteenth-century poor.

中文翻译：

---

换个角度看：19 世纪晚期伦敦的微观历史和济贫院体验

本文使用微观历史方法来调查 19 世纪晚期伦敦一个贫民的“济贫院经历”。它的主题是 Frank Burge，一位非常多产（尽管绝非独一无二）的通讯员，他在 1884 年至 1885 年间从白杨济贫院向地方政府委员会（中央贫困法律机构）写了几封冗长的投诉信。它把这些信放在以及他们激发的官方回应，以及其他公共和官方文件，并使用混合方法论来揭示关于困难、斗争和个人能动性的丰富叙述。在这样做的过程中，它认为，与更正统的福利历史相比，只有通过这种艰苦而敏感的历史重建，我们才能真正了解本质和遗产，