The History of 6 Sussex Square

The house was a Ladies School from 1872 run first by Maria Edwards and her sister, from Staffordshire, and then by Ann Marie Lake, from Dudley, between 1891 and 1893.

From 1919 to 1920 the house was used as a Temporary Poor Law Institution under the provisions of the Poor Law Act of 1834, which stated that no able-bodied person could receive financial or other assistance except while living in a workhouse. After 1911, workhouses were rebranded as Poor Law Institutions – so the house was effectively a workhouse. The Brighton workhouse at Elm Grove was used as a hospital for sick and injured troops between 1915 and 1920 and the workhouse residents moved to other buildings. In the aftermath of the Great War there was also an increase in the numbers of people forced to fall back on the Poor Law system and a corresponding need to find additional temporary buildings.

Many houses in Sussex Square (4,5,6,7 and 25) became temporary Poor Law Institutions after 1915 when the Elm Grove site became a hospital. The Poor Law system was finally abolished in 1948 with the introduction of the welfare state provisions of the Attlee Government.