Everyone is going to have at least one ancestor who was given money, food or clothing from the poor rate funds or they may have been forced (no one went there voluntarily I am sure) to enter the workhouse.
The records that these interactions with the parish officials and the workhouse generated are a goldmine for family history and I am sure you will be surprised what you will find when you start to use these documents.
Click on the links below to start learning more about the the poor law & workhouse.
A point worth noting about workhouses is that, on death certificates at least, they were often given a street address so that people would not be seen to have died “in the workhouse”. I have 3 ancestors who died in the 1930s and all their death certificates show odd addresses. One is “160 Beverley Road, Hull” which is now a modern hospital, but being born and bred in Hull I know that it was an workhouse which was converted into a hospital. All 3 of my ancestors died in what would have been their nearest hospital which still carried the name of the workhouse.