Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the workhouse, the casual ward, esp. the Marylebone workhouse; ext. as Lump Hotel.

1873		Sl. Dict. 219: Lump the workhouse; also called the Pan.
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 95: An old bloke who was knocker up got laid up, and they took him into the lump, where he pegged out.
1900		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘A Dangerous Dad’ Sporting Times 3 Feb. 1/4: For I’d sooner ’im share my last bit o’ dry toke / Than I’d see ’im penned up in the ‘lump’ now.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The Cost Of Living’ Sporting Times 25 June 1/4: Though he musn’t borrow, steal, or mump, / There was one soft line still open, he could go into the ‘lump’.
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 76: These (omitting the ones that everyone knows) are some of the cant words now used in London: [...] The lump – the casual ward.