Maria LAYE was born in 1834 and was admitted to the pauper farm in Tooting at an unknown age. Additional notes we have for her are "also spelt LAY".
Her date of death is unknown. The cause of death has not yet been determined, but we are actively searching records for further information.
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During the 1840s and 1850s, workhouses were often places of hardship, where children such as Maria were sent due to difficult circumstances including poverty and family bereavements. The workhouse system was known for its strict rules and conditions, offering only the barest of necessities in exchange for hard labour.
The Tooting pauper home was not in itself a workhouse, but a private institution to which numerous London workhouses 'farmed out' children. The condition of many children living and working in the Tooting establishment is known to have been pitiful even before cholera broke out there.