Midleton Board of Guardians

Context

Creator(s): Midleton Board of Guardians

• Administrative History ↴

  The Midleton Board of Guardians was the governing body of Midleton workhouse and poor law union. Midleton workhouse opened 21 August 1841. Midleton Poor Law Union was established under the Poor Law (Ireland) Act, 1838. It was one of 16 unions in the overall County Cork area. Each union was centred on a city or market town and its hinterland, and this union area sometimes ignored existing parish or county boundaries. In this central town was situated the union workhouse (usually built between 1838 and 1852) which provided relief for the unemployed and the destitute. The responsibilities of the guardians increased to encompass public health, including some medical relief for the destitute at the workhouse, ‘outdoor’ relief though a system of dispensary districts, and other functions including overseeing smallpox vaccinations, the boarding-out of orphan and deserted children, and providing labourers’ cottages and improved sanitation. The workhouse buildings included a fever hospital, and fever sheds were created in local districts when larger outbreaks occurred. The workhouse provided education to child inmates, and employed a schoolmaster and schoolmistress. Young inmates also received agricultural education on the workhouse farm. Each workhouse was managed by a staff and officers under the charge of a workhouse master, who reported to the board. Overall responsibility rested with the union's board of guardians, some of whom were elected, and some of whom were ex-officio members appointed usually from amongst local magistrates. The board appointed its own inhouse committees, and received reports from workhouse officers and from dispensary district committees and district medical officers. It also made resolutions on internal and poor law matters and, sometimes, on wider political or social issues. Poor law services were principally financed by a poor rate levied on property owners in the union’s districts, and collected by rate collectors appointed by the board. Central government also provided loans. Each union was under the central supervision of the Poor Law Commissioners up to 1874 and thereafter of the Local Government Board (later Local Government Board in Ireland). These government-appointed bodies received reports from the board and its officers, appointed inspectors and auditors, sanctioned or rejected proposed expenditure, appointments, and policies, and made the final decision on major administrative issues. In 1850, it was decided that several districts in the Midleton union should be severed from it in order to form a distinct Youghal poor law union. The scope and functions of the board of guardians were changed over time by legislation including the Public Health (Ireland) Acts 1874 and 1878, Medical Charities Acts, Vaccination Acts, Dispensary Houses Act, the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Act, Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act 1878, and Labourers’ Acts. While these acts tended to increase the role of the board, the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 saw most of its public health functions taken over by the newly-created Cork County Council and Midleton Rural District Council. The board continued to administer the workhouse and its hospital, and to supervise some forms of outdoor relief. In November 1920 the board rejected the authority of the Local Government Board in Ireland and accepted that of the Local Government Department of Dail Eireann, later the Department of Local Government of the Irish Free State. The Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act 1923 led to the abolition of the workhouse system, and its replacement with the formation of the county boards of health and public assistance. In common with many former workhouses, the Midleton workhouse buildings were taken over for use as a local home and hospital.

• Archival History ↴

  The first, and largest, accession of records of Midleton Board of Guardians was deposited in the Archives in around 1982 from Midleton District Home and Hospital. Some indoor relief registers and other inmate and patient records were retained by the Sisters of Mercy at Midleton Hospital (later known as Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital). These records were deposited in the Archives in 2009 and 2010.

• Immediate Source Acquisition ↴

  Official Transfer