History of Newry Workhouse   [Part 2]

by

John McCullagh BA , BSc

Prior to the 1830s some little Poor Relief was sporadically offered, mainly through the Churches, in almshouses to orphans and to the most destitute.  Under the Act a central Board, known until 1847 as the Poor Law Commission and thereafter as the Poor Law Board had overall responsibility for relief.

Newry Respondents to the Commission of Inquiry

The Irish Commission of Enquiry had been established to gauge the extent of need prior to the extension here of the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act.  In 1836 it delivered its report into the condition of the poorer classes.  The Report is available from the National Library in Dublin.

Much of the information was gleaned from responses to a questionnaire circulated to chosen prominent citizens in the regions.  The questions put to witnesses reflect the attitude of their authors.  So do the list of names and public stations of their selected witnesses.  With the benefit of hindsight we might wonder whether these people could truly reflect society as a whole or testify to the extent of poverty (and to comment upon the reasons).  The reader might decide for himself/herself after reflecting on the variety of answers given to identical questions.  Considerable weight was given to this testimony when the Report was drawn up.  For these reasons we quote from some of the responses of local contributors.

A number of prominent citizens represented Newry at the 1835 Inquiry.  The local Presbyterian Minister Rev John Mitchell had recently come to Newry from Derry.  Within the next decade his son John would qualify as a solicitor.  Fired by outrage at the iniquitous British system, he forsook his practice to take up the Young Irelander cause.  He went to Dublin and became editor of the revolutionary pamphlet ‘The Nation’ and championed the cause of Ireland’s poor until he was transported.  His father’s testimony to the Inquiry too was sympathetic to the plight of Ireland’s poor.

Others testifying there included two justices of the peace, Mr Thomas Wearing and Mr William Thompson.  A Mr Thomas Greer also gave evidence, as did the Rev John Kerr, a Protestant Minister and Rev Blake, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Dromore.

A number of the pre-determined questions seemed designed to blame the poverty of our citizenry on alcohol abuse, and such perceived ills as recourse to pawnbrokers’ shops.  Some respondents did not always make clear on whose behalf they were speaking, or whether they were expressing the ‘common view’ or an authoritative opinion based on experience and verifiable fact.

An occasional question remained unanswered.  Rev Mitchell offered no opinion on the number of public houses or the extent of illicit distillation in Newry.  By contrast Mr Thompson J.P. alleged these were too numerous to count, were greatly increasing in number but deteriorating in aspect and were “a crying evil and certainly one of the most fruitful sources of poverty and crime”.  He also considered the “thirteen pawnbrokers” who dealt “exclusively with the very poor” as “a very great evil now”. 

Without the prejudicial comments, Mitchell concurred with the numbers.  Pawnbrokers’ clients, he opined, also included “others in distress and want”.

Some few paupers, it is accepted, attempted to pawn stolen goods.  Yet the modern mind may struggle to view the existence of so many pawnbrokers as indicative of moral turpitude on the part of any, save possibly that of the pawnbrokers themselves.

All the witnesses agreed that the numbers and condition in respect of food, clothing and shelter of the poor, to be deteriorating. The Rev Kerr thought to add that “their moral condition is chiefly to be deplored”.  Mitchell remarked that “employment and rates of wages had fallen much more than had (commodity) prices.”

All agreed that the parish was peaceable, with prosperous savings’ banks and benefit societies whose customers, mainly tradesmen, also included thrifty servants and people of humble means.  Kerr and Thompson concurred that among the town poor there were instances of three or four families sharing the one cabin.

It was more common than they thought, averaging more than seven persons per tiny ‘entry’ house.

Conditions within these cabins or cottages were Spartan.  Mitchell testified that they were owned and let by farmers in country areas, and by persons of some substance in the town who ‘built and let little houses to the labouring classes in backward streets’.  The rent, more expensive by half in town though with no land attached on which to grow food, averaged around six pence a week.  This was a substantial weekly expenditure for the poorest families at the time and beyond the means of those who had no employment to pay for it.  In the country they generally consisted of two small apartments, in the town of one, very miserably furnished, often without bedstead or any comfortable bedding.  The two JPs said they were ‘of the worst description’ and ‘not furnished at all’.  In the country cottiers part paid for their rent through labour.  In town they generally ‘hold of one person and work for another’.

When asked the number of acres in the parish and the rent per acre, the various witnesses betrayed their ignorance and/or willingness to hazard estimates as accurate facts.  Kerr gave 9,690 acres, Mitchell 13,021 and Blake 8,436 though the latter referred only to the RC Church: he also ventured that arable and pasture land rented for much the same, on average at £1 10s.  Greer and Mitchell thought about £2 and Thompson £1 5s.  Kerr answered most comprehensively that remote land was let at about the latter sum but close to town at an average of £2-£3 and some as high as £6-£7.  Two thirds of land was arable, the rest under pasture.

Three witnesses contended that con acre was prevalent, two (Blake and Thompson) that it was not. [The dictionary defines con acre as an Irish farming system of the nineteenth century where land is let for a season, usually to the very poor on which if they can supply manure, they might raise a small potato crop].  Blake continued that ‘the con acre crop is on average, non-remunerative.  If the labourer can get constant employment elsewhere he would find it cheaper to buy potatoes in the market.  He finds the con acre beneficial when he cannot get work elsewhere, employing both himself and his family’.

As to absentee landlords, there was again much disagreement.  Greer testified that the principal landlords were absentees and did not reside in any part of Ireland, only to be contradicted by Blake and others.  Confusion reigned because the Marquis of Downshire resided mainly in England but occasionally in Hillsborough.  Earl Kilmorey lived in England.

Farms were held through their agents.  Mitchell said average farms were 3-5 acres, with one third of 5-12 acres and about twenty of 50 acres.  Greer settled for 6-12 acres, Kerr for 5-30 acres, Thompson 5 acres and Blake 4-12 acres with the greatest number about 7 acres.  About fifty to sixty persons were employed, mainly stone-breaking, on public works, and with few exceptions were paid weekly in money.

The Commissioners asked about numbers of cottiers dispossessed to allow landlords to enlarge their farms.  All agreed it was not then a prevalent practice but where it happened, the paupers flocked into town ‘augmenting the number and the misery of the poor’.  Blake added the helpful note that ‘though the small farmer had not been dispossessed of his land, he was obliged by order of his landlord, or the landlord’s agent, to eject the poor cottiers who occupied cabins on his ground. Thus many poor families have been thrown into a state of mendicancy and are now paupers in Newry and the surrounding districts.’

On the extent, nature and final destination of emigrants from the parish, they advised; Greer - about twenty five, mostly sons and daughters of farmers, to Canada mainly; Mitchell concurred, adding United States, Van Dieman’s Land and England as destinations; Kerr thought ‘a number of respectable tradesmen, to US and New South Wales’; Blake, about six or eight rather comfortable families per year, to America.

 Interestingly John Moore J.P. of Kilkeel answered of his area to this question that ‘about five hundred of the best of small farmers, mostly Protestant but about ten Catholics, have emigrated to America.’  It seems reasonable to conclude that, unlike the situation about to manifest itself over the next decade and beyond, of enforced and assisted emigration mainly of destitute Catholic paupers, these earlier emigrants were unassisted and largely of well-to-do (mainly) Protestant farming stock in search of better prospects abroad.

Perhaps of greatest note in relation to all of the above evidence is the extent to which the witness of the Justices of the Peace - who were to hold ex officio membership of the Board of Guardians - diverged from that of the clergy representatives. The latter was more close to the actual case as evidenced in the figure reproduced below from the Parliamentary Gazetter of Ireland 1843.

Newry: Earlier Relief of the Destitute

The celebrated and prosperous Newry merchant Sir Trevor Corry had bequeathed £2,000 to establish a charity for the relief of poverty in Newry.  Interest from the bequest realized a monthly income of more than £20.  The fund was managed by trustees who distributed the proceeds to approximately thirty five paupers from 1823.  In addition to this up to fifty paupers were relieved from Church funds managed by wardens, receiving from half a crown to a crown a week.  Funds came from bequests of £30 per annum from a Mr Ogle and a Mr Wright and were equally shared among the Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and Church of Ireland congregations.

Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland noted in 1837 that there were six almshouses in Newry erected at the expense of Rev J Pullen, vicar general, without any endowment attached to them, the inmates being appointed by the vicar of Newry.  The principal relief of the poor was organised by the Newry Mendicity Association which was funded by bequests and donations from Church collections and special funds such as the Cholera Fund, and from the sale of yarn spun by the paupers.

Their tenth Report of 1837 shows that three hundred and ten poor women were thus engaged by the Committee.  In that year too premises were acquired in Canal Street for fitting-up as a workhouse for the reception of paupers.  This development led to the reconstitution of the Association as the Committee of the Newry Workhouse and Mendicity.   It was capable of accommodating sixty paupers for whom work was provided.

Their 1834 report detailed the deaths of twenty three paupers during the year.  Also itemized is cash paid weekly to absolute paupers, ranging from 3d to 12d, and provisions allocated, in the form of 1 lb of meal per week.  The 1835 report of the newly constituted association reiterates the principles of the previous body i.e. to more effectually suppress street begging as well as to more fully meet the wants of our numerous poor.  It congratulates itself that ‘the greater part of the incorrigible vagrants have fled the town, while several of the hitherto idle and profligate paupers have since adopted some plan of earning their support by their own efforts’.  Indeed the Committee argues that 'it might have eradicated begging from the town if it had had greater resources and but for the misapplied benevolence of townspeople who gave money to such people calling to their doors.'

Despite this arrogant and regressive attitude, assistance was offered to the poor both within and outside the workhouse.  In addition to spinning, it was reported that during the previous three months, under a contract from the Commissioners of Police, the town administrators of the time, thirty one street sweepers had been employed at rates ranging from 3d (for boys and girls) to 6d-12d a day for men.

The Committee acknowledged that the amount of outdoor relief offered was far from being commensurate with the needs of the individuals concerned.  They further reported that where they had reason to doubt the reality of distress of those seeking outdoor relief, they offered admission to the workhouse, which with its attendant condition of ‘constant labour’ was in many instances sufficient to get rid of the applicant.  Little allowance apparently was given from these ‘charitable’ persons for the dignity of the individual pauper, for the fear of separation from family and loved ones or for the attendant horror of social stigma that forevermore attached to any workhouse inmate, whatever the cause of his or her distress.

The chief instance of application for admittance was on behalf of orphans, several of whom were taken into the house and subsequently hired out as servants.  The Committee acknowledged receipt of £160 from local clergy of various denominations being the amount of collections raised in their churches for the poor.  The chief source of income in addition was: subscriptions from inhabitants of Newry £510: sale of yarn £335: subscriptions of non-residents £108.  Almost all of the yarn spun was outside the workhouse - an important part of outdoor relief.  The main costs were purchase of raw materials (flax) and payment for spinning, food, heating, rent and salaries.  It is perhaps interesting to note that under the Sweeping Account is a note of £51 income earned from manure gathered from the streets and sold to farmers.

Were one to assess provision for the needs of the poor of Newry of the time from the above alone, or to place undue emphasis on the Reports of the Mendicity Association, one would have cause to wonder about the need for extensive further provision, and especially the construction on the edge of town of a further Workhouse to accommodate the needs of up to one thousand paupers.  That the Workhouse was quickly filled beyond capacity soon after it opened testifies eloquently to the opposite.

Still, earlier paupers would clearly have been grateful for the Canal Street Workhouse and other provisions, especially outdoor relief.  The experience and expertise of the Association was utilised at the founding of Newry Union Workhouse in 1841.  Its Secretary, Robert Alexander Forster was appointed first Clerk.

Newry in the mid nineteenth century

In today’s world also we live in prosperity and luxury amidst great poverty and need. Our sensibilities are somewhat spared since the extremes are usually separated geographically by great oceans and we can, for the most part, forget that eighty per cent of the world’s people live with constant hunger.

In Ireland of the mid nineteenth century, the poorest and most destitute of our own people occupied the western provinces, but great poverty was all around.  In the east there was some industry to offer the chance of employment and towns where relief from distress might be had.  The land too was more fertile and in Ulster a different form of land-holding prevailed. The Ulster Custom gave some fairness of rent, fixture of holding and compensation for improvements.  On the other hand, wages were extemely low even in the linen industry.  John Hancock, agent to Lord Brownlow in North Armagh, observed, 'The linen manufacture offers the strongest inducement to subdivision of land, because a very small portion of ground, in addition to looms, will support a family' [quoted in Lurgan 1610-1970 by F X McCorry Inglewood 1993].  Just under half of all land holders there had two acres or less.   The Lurgan Union became 'one of the most populous districts in Ireland' and records of admissions show a considerable fraction owning to work associated with the linen trade.  Lest one imagine it was only poor Catholics that suffered, it must be noted that the majority of those who died in N Armagh in the Hunger years, both inside and outside the Workhouse, were Protestants.

Much of Newry’s prosperity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries may be attributed to the building of the Newry Canal (completed 1741) which boosted tonnage at Newry port.  Exports included oats, wheat, butter, linen cloth, flax, oatmeal, eggs and cattle. The coal reserves of Coalisland, for the exploitation of which the Canal had originally been built, soon petered out. In 1835 Newry’s exports of flour, meal and oats came to 24,867 tons.  Although there were only 9,532 acres under corn, this was one fifth of the Irish total and County Down was described as the great wheat growing district of Ireland.  The natural consequence of extensive grain growing was extensive brewing and distilling industries.  Distilleries had an output of 368,352 gallons and 116,410 gallons respectively in 1830.

Imports included timber, slates, cotton and wine.  Between the years 1842-1850 the ship canal was extended to Fathom and the Victoria Locks built, providing employment and a trade boost.  Newry & Mourne Official Guide 1978 boasted that ‘Newry was once the fourth centre of trade in Ireland.  In 1836 its trade was estimated at £1m of which butter was valued at £360,000.’  Its Customs House returns for 1843-4 of foreign shipping was 12,338 tons with gross receipts of £38,577.  Manufacture in the town included rope and sail making, brewing, tanning, salt works, spades, tobacco and snuff and muslins.

In 1841 the town’s population was 13,227.  It increased by a mere one per cent in the next decade and fluctuated around this level for the rest of the century.  Meanwhile the population of the parish by 1851 increased by four per cent to 24,809.  This must be seen against huge falls throughout the rest of Ireland, except for the dramatic growth of Belfast which quickly eclipsed Newry.

Hospitals and Dispensaries

The medical charities within the Union were a Fever Hospital and Dispensary at Newry, and dispensaries at Forkhill, Meigh, Mullaghglass, Poyntzpass, Rathfriland and Warrenpoint.  In 1839 they received £363 from subscriptions and a similar amount from public grants.  They spent £454 in salaries to medical officers, £286 for medicines and £285 for contingencies, and administered to two hundred and twenty four intern and nine thousand eight hundred and forty six extern patients.

The Fever Hospital in Newry was described in the Parliamentary Gazetter of Ireland 1843 as... ‘a good and recently established institution with a department for bad surgical cases. It serves a district of 22,489 acres with a population of 25,117. In 1839 it and the dispensary received £580, expended £334 and administered to two hundred and twenty four intern and one thousand four hundred and twenty four extern patients’.

Statistics in the Gazetter gives an interesting comparison of the Armagh and Down sections of Newry.

Down/ Armagh Area: in acres 295/334 : Population 1831, 9524 /3541: Population 1841, 8899/ 3073 :Number of houses 1430/ 484 : Number of families per house, 2.6/ 2.4 : Families employed in farming 366 /150 : Families in trade/manufacture 1151/ 284 : Families otherwise employed 366/ 148 : Professional/propertied families 99 /49 : Directing of labour 1055/296 : Manual labourers 616/ 218 : Unspecified means 112 /19 : Males who could read and write 1937/ 733 : Males who read, but not write 636 /199 : Males neither read nor write 1005 /308 : Females, read & write 1436/ 614 : Females read, not write 1199 /389 : Females, neither read nor write. 1754/479.

Care must be taken in analysing these figures. The poorer Ballybot (Armagh) had 7.3 persons per house in 1831 (compared with 6.7 on the Down side) but the houses on the west side of the river were tiny.  Remember that the RC Bishop Blake had testified that most were of one apartment.  Allowing for the different population totals and number of families, the most remarkable thing is the similarity in these statistics.  As we would expect, the older and more prosperous Down side had a greater number of professionals and tradesmen, and ‘directors of labour’.  It was also much more densely populated per acre and had a high number of manual labourers.  There was less disparity in literacy levels than one might have expected.  Though town residents, a great many were still engaged in agriculture.

Administrative Concerns

In Ireland - as in England and Wales - the first task of the Assistant Poor Law Commissioners was to incorporate parishes into Poor Law Unions. These normally centred on the market town and were supposed to marry geographical convenience with administrative exigencies. In this area for example, clustered around Newry Union were Carrickmacross, Dundalk, Kilkeel, Banbridge, Armagh and Lurgan Unions.   The latter covered the north of the county: Armagh the mid and southern mid part of the county.

The Newry Workhouse site in Carneget, County Armagh was not the first choice.  It had been proposed for Rathfriland Road, County Down, later the Fever Hospital site.  This location, on the more prosperous side of town may have been considered unsuitable.

The seven acre site used was purchased for £972.  High above town but beyond the municipal boundary, it could be spotted and identified by mendicant paupers from miles around.  The Workhouse was completed in 1841 at a total cost of £7,100.  It was to accommodate up to one thousand paupers.  A little anecdotal aside ....

I am reliably informed by our reader Jennifer Ingham, who has it on family oral history, that her great great grandfather, William McCullough, born about 1830 built it.  The story was that after winning the tender, a law was passed making fire escapes compulsory but that the authorities insisted on keeping the tender to the original price. The hospital was then built to that price, with fire escapes - but as a result, William went bankrupt.

Due to the disgrace,the whole family moved to Glasgow, where the family name became McCulloch. They moved to Glasgow between 1871 and 1887.

Alternatively, I have also received information form a reader (Mrs Pat ......) that a forbear of hers ... "Sinclair Carroll, is credited with building the Newry Workhouse together with the workhouse in Armagh (Towerhill).   He may well have also been an architect."   Both of these statements could be true, if the latter is credited with the architectural drawings only!  In any case, both statemens are hearsay.

....

Despite reservations we may have in a later generation about the philosophy that inspired it or the attitudes of many of its administrators, we must acknowledge that the whole of the new Poor Law provision was a practical, praiseworthy effort to break away from the ineffectual parochial unit.

Unionisation and the subsequent inspection of the unions were in the hands of the assistant commissioners.  A Board of Guardians was to be elected by the ratepayers of the union (whose rates would subsidize its upkeep).  It was their task to supervise the day-to-day administration with the help of salaried experts such as workhouse masters.  There would also be a matron and a medical adviser.  It was important to offer salaries sufficient to attract suitable applicants.

In Ireland, the only opposition to the new poor law provisions was local and on the more prosperous eastern seaboard.  The Newry Telegraph declared the Poor Law Bill to be a bad one 'concocted by theorists who knew little or nothing about the people for whom they propose to legislate.   It was founded upon an absurd and ridiculous report drawn up by an ignorant theorist (Nicholls).'   Newry Union, for example, strenuously objected to a British Government proposal that the charge on the greatly distressed but poorly rated western region of the island should be shared by the more prosperous east.  They argued logically, if unsuccessfully, that under the Act of Union they had no more responsibility for this charge than did any local region of England or Wales.

There was much debate and some opposition in England to the new poor law regime.  This, after all, was the decade of Chartism, that democratic reform movement that among other things demanded manhood suffrage, electoral reform, no property qualification for M.P.s and some recognition for organised labour.  Despite the opposition by 1838 the assistant commissioners had incorporated 90% of parishes in 573 unions with the remainder following within a generation.

In both countries when the new system was in place, a few inequities persisted while others were imagined.  Larger towns felt that they bore an unequal burden, both in rates and in the social problems consequent upon the influx of paupers, while small centres felt that they were overlooked by their bigger neighbours.  Parishes and their religious representatives retained too much influence while the latter often absented themselves or exercised too little responsibility.  The deliberate absence of prominent elected persons from arduous Boards of Guardians meetings was a problem, as often too was the collection of rates.  While many Boards worked diligently to promote an efficient and sometimes even a humane service, many did not.  In Ireland - and in Newry - Justices of the Peace were over-represented on the Board and often had no empathy with or little sympathy with pauper inmates, the vast majority of whom were not of their faith.  That some paupers were interred without religious ceremony caused a press furore [Open Door 1901-2] though the conditions under which they had lived went largely without remark.

On the other hand the early decades of the Newry Workhouse revealed in the appointed medical officer, one Doctor William Alexander Davis, a true champion of the poor who tirelessly and fearlessly argued with a niggardly Board the case for the friendless inmates.  Even the Board of the time, which normally encouraged harsh discipline and a repressive regime lest paupers come to find in-house conditions to their liking, commented about this employee…

‘…we have never heard a complaint against him for neglect of duty, but know him to be a favourite with the paupers for his kind humour and attentive conduct …’

Had he not worked so hard and argued the paupers’ case so strenuously, then Newry’s Workhouse may have mirrored that of the Lurgan Union, which was several times publicly denounced in Westminster (see later notes herein), and many hundreds more of our poor would have died needlessly in the Workhouse.

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