Reply #3: Some more information on Sims

[TallahasseeGrannie]

George R Sims (1847-1922) was a campaigning journalist specialising in stories on poverty and poor housing published in the series entitled How the Poor Live and then in a column in the new Sunday Referee. His output also included plays and children's books as well his recitations such as The Lifeboat and In the Workhouse: Christmas Day (1879) and which appeared under the pseudonym of "Dagonet".

By the middle of the century, Christmas Day (or more often Boxing Day, December 26th) had a became a regular occasion for local dignitaries to visit their union workhouse and dispense food and largesse. The workhouse dining-hall would be decorated and entertainments organised. Such occasions were, however, seen by some as condescending and patronising — the standpoint from which In the Workhouse: Christmas Day is written. Despite a number of factual flaws in its narrative (official regulations allowed couples over sixty to have a room together, and a union workhouse was obliged to take in and feed anyone in case of "sudden and urgent necessity"), Sims's ballad became immensely popular.