In 1861-3, a new Stepney Union workhouse intended to accommodate up to 800 inmates was erected at the west side of St Leonard's Street, Bromley-by-Bow at a cost of over £30,000.
The foundation stone was laid at a ceremony on October 18th, 1861. A history of the Stepney Union was recounted and children from the Limehouse institution sang a psalm.
The three-storey main building was constructed of brick and had a T-shaped layout with its main facade facing to the south. At the center were administrative offices and the Master's accommodation, with male and female accommodation in wings at each side. A dining hall and chapel were to the rear and a separate hospital block was to the west of the workhouse.
On April 18th, additional works were carried out to prevent inmates climbing over the workhouse walls at the south and escaping across the railway lines.
The building opened on March 30th 1863 and local ratepayers were invited to inspect the premises and its gas lighting.
The first Master of the establishment was to be James Hall but the Guardians changed their minds after hearing that he had been dismissed from his previous post because of drunkenness. John Watson took up the post.
The workhouse location and layout is shown on an 1869 OS map:
Stepney workhouse site, 1869
Stepney main building from the south-west, c.1938.
In 1868, the recently formed Metropolitan Asylums Board set up six new Sick Asylum Districts for the purposes of providing hospital care for the poor on separate sites from workhouses. One of the new Districts was the Poplar and Stepney Sick Asylum District and comprised the area covered by the two poor law unions. Soon afterwards, the new District erected a large hospital at Devon's Row in Bow to which sick paupers from Poplar and Stepney were from then on admitted.
Stepney was involved in several further reorganizations of poor law administrative areas. From 1921-5 it was known as the Parish of Limehouse, then from 1925 a new Stepney Union was set up comprising Mile End Old Town, St George in the East, and Whitechapel.
In 1922, several hundred Stepney unemployed stormed the building to protest against the rates of outdoor relief in Stepney which were lower than those in the neighboring Poplar Union.
The buildings suffered bomb damage during the Second World War with the western part of the original building and an 1893 annex being destroyed. After the war, Bromley House as it became known was used to house homeless families. The premises were closed down in March 1966 and demolished the following month to make way for an elderly persons' home.