The old Ripon Union Workhouse (now museum), home to “the poor and destitute of the city before welfare state”. Men and women had separate accommodation and the end blocks were for “vagrants”.

This became home to many, including a 'former master wheelwright', 'former gentleman's servant', 'master shoe-maker', butcher, farmer and many who had known better times. And it wasn’t just for the old, the youngest being Matthew Colby aged two weeks.

One survey of the workhouse reported, 

“Ripon was found to have 33 inmates, 11 men, 11 boys, 9 women and 2 girls. Only one of the men was not 'able bodied' at 68 years of age, but those able spent 8 hours a day breaking stones to mend roads.”

The Workhouse was a world of its own with its own teacher, chaplain and doctors, chopping its own fire wood, doing its own laundry, growing its own vegetables, having its own infirmary and its own van to transport people to asylums if they became unduly violent.

Vagrants presented a special problem and in 1877 a separate block of buildings was provided where they could have an evening meal, a bed for the night and leave the next day after completing duties.