General Chat

Over a hundred years ago large numbers of the population of Newcastle upon

Tyne were unemployed, homeless and starving. What is now the north side of

Newcastle General Hospital was a work house. People worked hard for shelter and a

meal. The young Doctor in charge was also the City's coroner, so disease was only

dealt with when it had ran its course, death. :-(

My gran - and her 9 siblings were born in the workhouse.
Not because the family were unemployed, homeless or starving - my g grandad was a ship's steward - but because it was somewhere where Healthcare was free!
The 'Workhouse' is now Southampton General Hospital.

Did anyone watch the bbc2 series A House of our Time? It was fascinating, telling the story of the people who have lived in one particular house in Newcastle.

Lizx

Liz, I really enjoyed the series, as I did the first one. :-)

Me too, Rose, althpugh I can't remember where the other one was set. I also enjoyed the series about certain streets in different cities.

Lizxx

The first one was in Liverpool Liz :-)

There's an article here on how they went about finding the house in Newcastle

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/house-through-time-how-chose-16186073

A brilliant series!

Back in the mid-60s I had to go into the Oldham Royal Infirmary for a minor operation ...... that was the later version of the Oldham Workhouse, and some of the old buildings had been incorporated into the "new" hospital when it was formed sometime in the 1920s/1930s The main Workhouse building that was kept was what had been the hospital wing.

You can maybe guess where I'm going with this :-)

The ward I was in had about 40 beds, 20 down each side, and was in that old original wing.

It wasn't dreary .............. there were many big high windows on both sides of the ward that let in lots of light, the walls were painted a light green.

I was also in that same hospital in about 1959, but in a different ward that might have been in the same wing, because there were about 30 beds in that ward.

My great gran using the workhouse as a form of free healthcare wasn't unusual.
There was a time where 'workhouse' wasn't used as the place of birth, but the address was used - to remove the stigma.
My gran hasn't got 'workhouse' as her place of birth on her birth certificate, and she was born in 1904.

I did Liz, that's where I got the story on the workhouse. The big grand house the Doctor lived in with his wife was just a stroll from the work house.
Sadly some of those diseases became epidemics.

My wife worked for many years as a nurse in St Nicholas Hospital before retiring.
Parts of it may in the past have been used as a work house.

Thanks Rose, I remember now.

Such a mix of people went through that house, didn't they, David?

Lizx

Not far from that house is Newcastle Technical College, formerly known as
Charles Trevelyan Technical College.
My late FIL taught welding and pipe fitting there.