How much info would workhouses demand?

[Abbreviation]

I had a lot of help from forum members when I first posted a query about my grandmother Cissie Amelia Cornwell
http://www.british-genealogy.com/for...use-Camberwell
I have been wondering, and this is more of a general query, how much info would you have to give to a workhouse before you were admitted? Would the ladies have been questioned as to who was the father of their expected babies and if they had any family that would support them?
As my grt grandmother was only admitted to Constance road a couple of days before she gave birth is it likely that she was in another workhouse before and that she only went to Constance Rd to give birth?

[Kerrywood]

The workhouse infirmary served for many as the local maternity hospital. If she was admitted purely to give birth, you're unlikely to find a settlement examination or any other record beyond admission/discharge, which you've already seen.

But if she was already on Camberwell's books and in receipt of relief, you might find something. If you want to search further, the settlement and relief records for the Camberwell Board of Guardians are at LMA, in the same series as the workhouse records.

You can search the LMA online catalogue here. Click Guest, enter the reference code CABG (no search term needed), and drill down the results until you get to Settlement and Relief.

Some Camberwell poor law records are provided online by Ancestry, but they're incomplete and unwieldy to browse. It's much easier to use the films at LMA, if you can get there.

[indexer]

AFAIK only pregnant single ladies would be questioned about the identity of the father so he could be served with an affiliation order and thereby made to contribute to the child's upkeep

[Abbreviation]

Thanks kerrywood I shall have a look and see what I can find. Emma Cornwell was unmarried and I think in the 1901 census had been working as a servant in Eastbourne. She listed her parents address as her address on my grandmother's birth cert. I was just wondering if I could find out if she had been in another workhouse before Constance rd.

[Kerrywood]

I was just wondering if I could find out if she had been in another workhouse before Constance rd.

I see from your other thread that she was admitted by a doctor and entered Constance Road a few days before the birth -- as opposed to just turning up at the porter's gate in labour (as many women did).

As her parents lived locally, and she gave their address, it seems unlikely that she was in another workhouse immediately beforehand. A search of other local institutions could be done, but once you'd exhausted the immediate Camberwell area it would be random and rather time-consuming.

If she is the person you've identified in Eastbourne in 1901, there might be some records of her there if she actively applied for assistance from the Eastbourne Union. She would almost certainly have lost her job at The Hydro when she fell pregnant, so you might strike lucky. You could try asking the West Sussex Record Office what records they have, or look at their online catalogue.