Workhouse
New laws were passed, the New Poor Law of 1834, to try to deal with the problem. People would only be given help if they went into the workhouse to live. Some places hoped to make a profit from the workhouse by using the free labor of the people. Most did not have skills to get normal jobs, so workhouse jobs included breaking rocks into small stones, breaking bones to make fertilizer, or pulling apart old rope to reuse the fibre. This old rope, known as oakum, was used to pack joints in ship building to keep them watertight. A metal spike was used to unpick the rope,, and the nickname for the workhouse was the spike.