Any ideas why son didn't look after father?

[Peter Goodey]

I'm not clear why this thread was resurrected but the original question was about a death in 1892.

Let's just underline that there was no National Health Service before 1948. In the 1890s the poor law infirmaries were the nearest thing to a public health service.

At this time the poor law infirmaries were recognisably developing into real hospitals. Legally, the Medical Relief Disqualification Removal Act of 1886 meant that patients of the infirmaries were not automatically classed as paupers (which would have meant loss of civil rights, such as they were in those days). They were already managed separately from workhouses.

[Mary Anne]

We keep trying to look at these historical events through our 20th century lens. We cannot.

There was no health care (as we know it), no employment/unemployment insurance (as we know it). No minimum wage, no Workman's Compensation. No universal sanitation, no fresh water supply, no innoculations, no general education - in fact, no requirement for children to attend school beyond age 14. No knowledge of infectious diseases and how to prevent them.
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera .....

PLEASE, can we not look at the past as the PAST -- and try and understand how things were THEN?!?!?!?! And, indeed, how far we have come?

Same applies to the plight of Home Children in another thread.

IMHO, our job as family historians is to UNDERSTAND and present the lives of our ancestors as they LIVED them. This means we MUST study not just the dates and names, but also the SOCIAL CONDITIONS that pertained at the time when they LIVED. IMHO, without that CONTEXT, the lives they lived were meaningless, and we may as well not bother finding out about them. And we certainly should not judge.


Mary Anne

[benny1982]

It is hard to try and think otherwise though for us family historians. As we did not live in their era it is more difficult for us to look through it any other way than our today's view.