The Poor Law Act of 1834 started the workhouse system. The Act was repealed in 1929, but the system lingered on for several decades because there was nowhere else for the inmates to go, and long-term residents had lost the capacity to make any decisions or look after themselves in the outside world.
The mention of the workhouse reminded this reader of a phrase from Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL said by Scrooge and repeated back to him,
"Are there no prisons; are there no workhouses?"
