Content & Structure
Scope & Content The archives of the Kinsale Board of Guardians are extensive and include large numbers of minute books, letter books, indoor relief registers, financial accounts, and administrative records. The minutes of meetings of Kinsale Board of Guardians record the administration of the workhouse and poor relief in general (BG/108/A). They also reflect developments in public health, and the care of children, and of those with disabilities and mental illness. In addition, they provide glimpses of emigration, local issues, and politics. The gap in the minutes from 1868 to 1888 is partially made up for by the presence of rough minute books for most of this period (BG/108/AA). Minutes of the board acting as a rural sanitary authority under the Labourers’ Acts trace to beginnings of the provision of social housing in the Kinsale area in the period 1886-98. (BG/108/AL). Letter books supplement the minutes in documenting the transmission of resolutions and decisions of the board to the PLC/LGB, other state bodies, suppliers, rate-payers, and others. The outgoing letter books present, covering the years 1899-1920, include letters of Kinsale Rural District Council, as the same clerk served both the board and the RDC (BG/108/B). An earlier letter book documents correspondence with the PLC, its architects, engineers, builders, bankers, and other suppliers in the Union’s first few year s (BG/108/BB).
Financial records (1839-1925), such as general and personal ledgers and treasurer’s books, record day to day expenditure and receipts, including payments to suppliers.
A small file of medical officers’ returns, 1915 -21, contains largely statistical returns of information regarding medical services in dispensary districts, such as number of cases, vaccinations, and public health issues (BG/108/DF). Administrative records present include master’s journals (1902 - 08) and a master’s report bo ok (1881-87), recording information relevant to the report made by the master of the workhouse to the board at weekly meetings (BG/108/F, FA. This includes information on provisions required, the weekly exercise of children, and matters arising, such as abandoned children received. A Workhouse farm account book (1899-1925) documents an area of activity not much reflected elsewhere in the collection (BG/108/FT). Records of inmates of the Workhouse, especially the indoor relief registers (1841-1917), record personal information on those who admitted to the Workhouse. They are a valuable source for family and genealogy research. The registers are supplemented by related records, such as admission and discharge books (1850-1907; BG/108/GA), and two paupers’ dis charge books (1855-57, 1869- 84; BG/108/GK). A similar record, a Fever Hospital patients’ register (BG/108/HE/1) is present for 1849 -50. Also present is a file of correspondence relating to dispensaries, mainly relating to medical officers and dispensaries (1915-21; BG/108/JD).
Cork City and County Archives 2011
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