The Bedwellty Union Workhouse was situated in Georgetown, Tredegar. It is from the Nanybwtch Junction A465. The building was in existence for approximately 127 years. The workhouse building was also used as a hospital. Today, the site where the building once stood, there is a housing estate known as St James Park. Before the workhouse Until 1834, poor relief was distributed at the discretion of the local parish from money raised from tax on property known as the poor rate. The way in which poor relief was administered varied enormously from area to area on a case-by-case basis. The population explosion from the Industrial Revolution turned many small rural parishes into the large towns overnight; this together with the unpredictable employment made poor law relief unsustainable. In 1832, the government appointed a royal commission to investigate the distribution of poor law relief in a sample of 3,000 parishes either by questionnaire or visits. A leading commissioner, later secretary of the Poor Law Commission, Edwin Chadwick believed that the system required a comprehensive reform and control from a main body in London. He also held the belief that the existing system: "needed to be reformed in such a way as to deter people from making unnecessary demands on public funds." The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was passed and a Poor Law Commission for England and Wales was set up in London employing inspectors to oversee the necessary changes. Single parishes were grouped together to form Unions and a total of 600 locally elected Board of Guardians ran these unions; this was the birth of local government. The Unions oversaw the poor relief in their particular geographical areas and were also instructed to build a workhouse to provide indoor relief to all those unable to support themselves financially. The able-bodied poor became the focus of the government reforms, as Fowler explains: "the poor law regime was specifically designed to discourage the entry of such people by making conditions worse than they might expect outside and offering a variety of further petty humiliations, from uncomfortable uniforms and dull food to tedious, unending tasks...taking the guardians’ hospitality was designed to be a degrading process and none but the desperate would undergo.". In 1837, Abergavenny Union was formed and then in 1849, the western part of the union comprising Bedwellty and Aberystruth separated and were joined the parishes of Ebbw Vale, Abertillery, Tredegar and