HOSPITAL, BARNOLDSWICK AND WORKHOUSE

[Stanley]

HOSPITAL, BARNOLDSWICK AND WORKHOUSE. INDEX ENTRIES AS OF 18 July 2005



[General: Barnoldswick came under the Skipton Union and the Poor Rate collected was used to support the Skipton Board of Guardians who controlled ‘Outdoor Relief’, the payments made by the Guardians to people who were not in the workhouse but performed ‘useful work’ under workhouse supervision. The only instance I have found of this in Barlick was breaking stone for road-mending. There was also ‘Parish Relief’ which appeared to be administrated locally but I have never been quite certain of this.]

1898
BUDC papers, 10/11/1898. Letter to the secretary of the Public Loans Board in London to say that a loan of £3,500 has been sanctioned to erect an isolation hospital. 24/11/1898. Letter to Tom Biker, surveyor, asking for a plan for the new hospital. 28/11/1900. Advert in Craven Herald asking for £3,500 in amounts of not less than £500, interest to be 3 ½ %. 05/02/1902. Invitations to two ladies to view the hospital. Prospective matrons?

1904
BUDC papers. 7th November 1904; Caretaker’s wage shown as 23/- per week.

C.1920
LTP. 78/AH/08, PAGE 1. Fred inman talks about a man in Earby called Taffy Walker who said that the best days of his childhood were spent in the workhouse.

c.1920
See LTP; 78/AC/04. Ernie Roberts talks about being in the Banks Hill isolation hospital with Scarlet Fever. He says the ‘fever wagon’ was green. In 78/AC/01, page 13. Ernie talks about his mother getting Parish Relief after the 1914/18 war. She drew 25/- a week but should have had 35/-. The relief officer, a man called Harrison, was diddling her out of ten shillings a week. He was found out, tried at Skipton and sentenced to nine months in the second division.

1927 [Colne]
Poor Rate was abolished under the 1925 Rating and Valuation Act, the overseers were to be abolished. Abolished in Colne in April 1927 when it was incorporated in the General Rate.

c.1928
LTP. 79/AO/03, page 11. Jack Platt talks about Poor Bones on Manchester Road and other places where stone was broken for the roads on Parish Relief.

1929
Craven Herald. 19/07/1929. Report about the imminent abolition of the Board of Guardians on April 1st 1930. They are to be replaced with Committees of Guardians supervised by the County Council. Bar=noldswick is to come under Staincliffe and the committee will meet at Skipton. Towns in the Staincliffe Division include Barnoldswick, Earby, Silsden, Skipton and Skipton Rural District. Total population 54,324. [This event figured in several reports of the Guardians in Skipton. A common topic was ‘why spend money out of the Poor Rate on premises which are to be handed over to the Council?]

1930
Craven Herald 10/01/1930. Reported in Council that Walter Wilkinson of Bank House, Coates, had offered his house for use as a general hospital for Barnoldswick. [SCG note: The Isolation Hospital at Banks Hill had been open since late 1900. This offer of Bank House at Coates was connected with a long-held ambition of the Council to have a general hospital in Barnoldswick. The Council had been discussing it for years and setting aside money in a separate account for the purpose.]

2004
Information from Dorothy Carthy. 23/10/2004. The hospital at Banks Hill consisted of a mortuary, nursing home, caretaker’s house, two isolation wards, one for each sex, with a kitchen in between. It closed c.1960. Briggs and Duxbury swapped land they owned near Hollins Road for the hospital site and built houses on it.

SCG/18 July 2005