Bandon workhouse Board of Guardians (BG42)

Bandon Board of Guardians

IE CCCA/BG/42

Kilbrogan EDs be taken into consideration [see also 18 Oct and 8 Nov] Resolved, that the board advertise for a store or building in Clonakilty to establish an auxiliary workhouse for 500 or 600 people. [See 29 Nov, 13 Dec] 1 Nov 1848 Clerk’s report on a visit to Overton workhouse, stating ‘I found from two to 300 children in one small room, which was intensely heated. The children were under no control whatever… and they appeared like so many mad children’. He also notes ‘the large number of children coming from Overton affected with fits’. He further reports the nuisance created by the boys’ privy emptying into the river which supplies the neighbourhood.

29 Nov 1848 New permanent fever hospital now open [capacity: 110]

20 Dec 1848 Resolution drawing the Admiralty’s attention to the ‘alarming number of wrecks which have lately taken place on the coast of their union, which they believe to be owing to the defective state of the lighthouses’. 10 Jan 1849 Doctor’s repor t expressing the opinion that the house could hold 500 paupers in excess of the 3010 accommodated on Saturday last ‘particularly as the additional accommodation at Overton is in preparation’. Also present is a PLC letter suggesting that nearly 600 inmates could be discharged and given out door relief. The board ‘do not consider it necessary to commence out door relief in this union’, and point out that the PLC’s not dividing the union led them to secure more buildings. [See also 28 Feb] 17 Jan 1849 Resolution directing relieving officers to make an inspection of paupers from their district and to report to the board, and to communicate to the landlord of each ploughland the names and numbers of paupers and the tenant they lived under. [31 Jan: PLC consider this ‘objectionable’] 28 Feb 1849 Total inmates: 3266. Deaths: 42. Fever: 18. [Capacity: 3185] Resolved, ‘that as it appears a wholesale system of plunder of the property of the union seems to be now going on in the workhouse’, that a committee be appointed to make a full account of all property. [This follows a PLC letter referring to inmates being charged for absconding from work and for drunkenness , and claims of persons ‘having sold stirabout out of the kitchen’]. 7 Mar 1849 Petition to parliamentarians expressing dismay at a proposal to impose a rate on all of Ireland to support paupers ‘in certain distressed districts’. The board think the measure ‘is but the first step in a system which will make the whole land of Ireland permanently liable for the pauperism of particular districts in it’. 21 Mar 1849 PLC letter asking why the relief list was not made up for the last six weeks. It is explained ‘that the admissions and discharges daily were so great as to occupy the whole time of the assistant master, who required the constant use of the books’. The lists are now up to date. 24 Mar 1849 Resolutions calling on the Town Commissioners of Bandon to carry out street cleaning and other preparations against Cholera (in response to Central Board of Health orders). [See 21 Mar: Cholera committees formed]

Cork City and County Archives 2011

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