Midleton workhouse Board of Guardians (BG118)

Midleton Board of Guardians IE CCCA BG/118

Ireland,… the failure of last year’s potato crop,… [and] the just ground for apprehension of a more extensive failure’.

19 Aug 1846 Resolved [at a meeting to consider the failure of the potato crop] ‘That from experience we de precate the system of affording gratuitous relief as likely to interfere with the industrious habits of the People’, and calling instead for funds for employment on public works. 2 Sep 1846 Resolved, that ‘at the present momentous crisis’, a Co Cork deput ation should attend on the Queen to set forth ‘the appalling state of destitution’ of her people. 25 Nov 1846 Resolved, that the relief committee be authorised to use a workhouse boiler to make soup for ‘the destitute poor who are not inmates of this Hous e’. [Later discontinued on the advice of the PLC]

23 Jan 1847 Resolved, ‘(tho’ the House is overcrowded) not to adopt the painful extreme of closing it against further admissions for the present’.

18 Mar 1847 Forty-six inmates died this week, with fever and disease now widespread in the House and the Union

17 Apr 1847 PLC letter regarding the refusal of local clergy to allow further Workhouse interments in churchyards.

1 May 1847 Medical Officer’s Report stressing sanitary conditions cannot be restored while ‘one batch of Fever patients are restored while another shoal are allowed admittance ’ and advising ‘put your House in order before disease comes within your own doors’.

4.

10 Jul 1847 – 24 Feb 1848

Includes:

10 July 1847 PLC letters regarding a loan and the striking of a rate to meet ordinary expenditure and the purposes of the Temporary Relief Act.

11 September 1847 Resolved, that relieving officers issue tickets of admissions to the workhouse in their districts, in place of those guardians who had acted as wardens. 10 November 1847 Resolved, to call on ‘proprietors, absentees as well as residents, to use every means of providing employment during the season of calamity’.

12 Jan 1848 Resolved, that Youghal Auxiliary Workhouse open on 14 January.

24 Feb 1848 PLC informed that the intention to send children in Youghal workhouse to local schools is frustrated by the schools’ refusal to receive them; notice of motion to apply credit on hand ‘to emigration purposes’.

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