Timeline

Health

Health

Tudor

Plague

Doctors and Hospitals

Greyfriars

Almshouses

Workhouses

Health and the Poor

In times when there was no help for those who were ill or poor the same laws took care of everyone who was in difficulty.

In the Middle Ages, the Abbey took care of the ill in the town. With its dissolution, a hospital for poor people was organised in Greyfriars. Later, the Tudor Poor Laws meant that each parish had to have a poor house where people were looked after. Elderly people who were poor might be lucky enough to have a place in one of the almshouses.

200 years later, Workhouses were introduced where all those who were ill, old poor or had no work. Reading built a new Workhouse which later became Battle Hospital.