Bandon workhouse Board of Guardians (BG42)

Bandon Board of Guardians

IE CCCA/BG/42

4.

14 Jan 1846 – 30 Dec 1846

Includes:

21 Jan 1846 Total inmates: 345 Resolution proposing that examination of candidates for admission should be on oath and asking the PLC whether guardians as justices of the peace may administer an oath. Resolution calling for ‘some arrangement which will enable the guardians to classify and separate prostitutes from the other inmates’, following the master’s statement that ‘established’ prostitutes have frequently been seen ‘watching at the doors to inveigle & induce girls of good appearance to leave the house and go upon the town’. 4 Mar 1846 Resolutions ‘to r elieve the potato market from the pressure of buying therein’, adopting household bread, oatmeal and Indian meal for diet and considering construction of an oven. [See 11 Mar: Master’s report stating ‘the Indian Corn Meal made very excellent food’, and 2 Dec: new ‘economical and nutritious dietary’ adopted].

11 Mar 1846 Resolution ‘deprecating in the strongest manner... improper interference... with the Protestant inmates’ by the assistant RC chaplain.

18 Mar 1846 Resolved, to memorialize the Board of Works regarding completion of a road from Bandon ‘to the deep water of the Bandon river’. [Resolutions regarding relief works and erection of piers also made] 6 May 1846 Resolution seeking the PLC’s opinion on whether warrants may be issued for mothers who desert their children, the father having first deserted his wife and children. The board fear that unless mothers may legally be apprehended ‘the house will be filled with children deserted in this manner’ 12 Aug 1846 Resolved, that owing to ‘the general a nd complete failure of the potato crop... particularly in the sea coast district, and the consequent alarming assemblages of unemployed labourers’, the government is called on to supply immediate employment on an adequate scale. 7 Oct 1846 Board’s opinion in favour of ‘establishing a depot for Indian meal in the town of Bandon’. The board think it the government’s duty to ‘ bring food at a reasonable rate within the means of the poor without any violent interference with the fair trade’. Reference is also m ade to the depot at Skibbereen and to the impossibility of relief committees meeting demand. 16 Dec 1846 Resolution concerning ‘the fearful state of destitution in the parishes of Lislee and Abbeymahon and Donoghmore, caused by the discharge of a great nu mber of persons off the Public Works’. 30 Dec 1846 Resolution regarding the ‘crowded state’, ‘poor ventilation’ and risk of increased ‘sickness and disease’ in the house, calling on the PLC’s architect to visit. [Total inmates: 1032; Deaths: 13 (capacity: 900)].

Cork City and County Archives 2011

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