Almshouse.

Almshouse. An almshouse is a house or set of houses in which accommodation is provided for persons disabled by age and poverty. Many philanthropists think that persons of this class are best provided for by means of pensions, which enable them to live with their friends; but the almshouse was a form of charity frequently preferred in old times by testators who desired to leave a visible memorial of their bounty. Great abuses formerly prevailed in some of these institutions. In some, persons of good position were received, and the intrusion of a poor man or woman was resented by the inmates. In others (as, for instance, in the Hospital of St Cross at Winchester), the master appropriated the whole of a great revenue, except what was required to carry out the letter of the founder's will. Abuses of this kind were checked by the appointment of a permanent Charity Commission in 1853. In Scotland, almshouses generally bear the name of Hospital (q.v.).