Originally uploaded by CrazyDave53
South Tyneside Hospital orginally started live as a Workhouse. The orginal South Shields Workhouse was build in German Street (just off Ocean Rd). By the 1870s, the German Street building was proving too small and in 1875 it was decided to build a new workhouse at a site on the edge of Harton Moor. The foundation stone for the new building was laid in September 1877 by the Chairman of the Board of Guardians, Mr WM Anderson JP. The architect for the scheme was Joseph Hall Morton who was also involved in the design of the nearby workhouse at Gateshead. Construction of the building cost £43,361 but the total cost including the purchase of 17 acres from the Church Commissioners was in the region of £55,000. The new workhouse started admitting paupers in 1878 although the building work was not finally completed until early in 1880. It initially accommodated 700 inmates and comprised an entrance block, main building, infirmary, and schools.
Successive additions were made to the site and by 1910 it was estimated that the cost to date had been £94,750 with the workhouse now able to accommodate 1,200 inmates excluding those in the separate lunatics' block at the south-east of the site.
South Shields workhouse has now become associated with the name of the novelist Catherine Cookson (1906-1998). Born into a poor family at Tyne Dock in South Shields, Catherine left school because of ill health before she was thirteen and followed her mother into domestic service. However, she began to try and educate herself through reading and night classes. At the age of 18, she obtained a job in the South Shields workhouse laundry.
Orginal Workshops and Laundry Block
No comments:
Post a Comment