Category: Gazetteer

Henry Edward Price, born 1824, spent nearly four years, through no fault of his own, in the Warminster Workhouse (the new Poor House) at Sambourne.

When he was 14 he fell ill with smallpox. His grandmother, with whom he had been living with, could not afford to look after him, so he had to become an inmate at the Workhouse. His story had a happy ending though. Local worthies saw him supplied with new clothes, gave him a sovereign, and he was able to go to America.

His diary, which he later gave to Islington Public Library, tells of his time in the Workhouse in Warminster. He mentions that “Some of us older boys were sent out to work at an old factory in Die House Lane, where they manufactured chair seating and webbing. My job was to assist in making horse hair seating. We boys of the Poor House never got any money.”

[So, the former Dye House had by, about 1838, become the premises of a factory making parts for furniture.]