Is fearr an Is fearr an tsláinte ná na tsláinte ná na táinte táinte

Is health better than wealth? Waterford County Archivist Joanne Rothwell

Is it better to be healthy than Is it better to be healthy than wealthy?wealthy?It requires a certain amount of

wealth to be healthyPoverty brings illness and diseaseWealth can also bring illnessThe two conditions are intimately

entwined and it can be hard to separate them enough to judge whether one or the other wins out on points

This is the job we are undertaking in this lecture series

Poverty and Health Poverty and Health Edwin Chadwick's Report on the Sanitary Condition of the

Laboring Population of Great Britain which was published as a report of the Poor Law Commissioners in 1842

"More than half the children of the working classes die, and only one-fifth of the children of the gentry die, before the fifth year of age," and he estimated that "The probable duration of life of a miner who had attained 40 years of age may not be, and we have reason to believe is not, half of that of the agricultural ranks who had attained the same period.

"An epidemic of smallpox raged at the end of the year 1837," he declared, "and carried off up- wards of 300 persons; yet of all this number I do not think there was a single gentleman, and not above two or three tradesmen.“

Frank H. Hankins ". . . under existing conditions, some selective impor- tance must be attached to infant mortality. The poverty of the parents, which is obviously the most important environmental cause, is itself primarily due to the inferior physique and intelligence of parents. While one must admit that there is doubtless an enormous number of unselected deaths among infants, he must also admit that in a crude and rough way infant mortality as a whole is biologically selective”

WAGES AND FEES WAGES AND FEES 1820s Average labourers wage was 6d per day1836 carpenter 1 shilling per day 1840 carpenter 2 shillings 8 ½ pence per day. Yearly

income c. £60 per year Rent of land of labourers “cottiers” worked out in labour25 December 1852 Lismore Workhouse Qtly salaries –

J.E. Currey MD salary as MO £12:10, David Barry, apothecary £8:15. Nurse £3:13 and Weaver £2:12

1867 average annual income £10 to £26. Highly skilled labourers average £1pw. Low skilled 14 shillings pw. Irish incomes half those of England and Scotland

1870 – wages ranged from 7 to 10 shillings 30 June 1875 Richard O’Reilly M.D. Lismore Workhouse

quarterly salary £25

Programme Programme

Introducing Institutions to Health and Wealth: the birth of banks and health services

Gorging and Gout: health and the disposable income

Dis-ease and Disease: the tonicChronic Conditions in Health and

Wealth

1818thth and 19 and 19thth Centuries Centuries Age of Enlightenment Science and TechnologyRevolutionCottage Industry to big industrySame holds true when it comes

to the fields of health and of finance

HEALTH: BARBERS TO HEALTH: BARBERS TO SURGEONSSURGEONS Guild of Barbers in Ireland received a royal charter in

1446 – included surgeons, wig-makers and apothecaries (pre-dates London and Edinburgh)

Guild dissolved in the 1840s Surgeons originally trained by apprenticeship c.1620 Trinity statues required a Doctor of Medicine

“...be present at three anatomical dissections” 1654 Fraternity of Physicians (later Royal College of

Physicians) founded connected to Trinity 14 June 1710 “...ordered that ground be laid out at the

South east corner of ye Physic Garden sufficient for erecting a laboratory and an Anatomical Theatre therefor” Cost £100. Opened 16 August 1711

1729 College of Physicians required that a candidate batchelor be examined in (1) Anatomy, (2) Materia Medica, Pharmacy and Botany, (3) Chemistry and (4) Pathology

1784 – Royal College of Surgeons Ireland founded

WATERFORD HOSPITALSWATERFORD HOSPITALSHoly Ghost Hospital – a dissolved monastery

purchased at the Reformation in 1545, enlarged in 1741 and 1743

County and City Fever Hospital – for contagious diseases established in 1799 (2 attending physicians and one resident apothecary)

Dispensary for Diseases of the Eye and Ear – founded 1831

Lying-in Charity – Queen Street visited women at their own residences

Leper Hospital –founded 13th century, closed mid-18th century and re-opened as a General Infirmary. 1839 recognised as a School of Surgery

Dispensary – including a fever hospital for typhus Dungarvan founded 1819

Dispensary – Portlaw 1835 Dr. James Martin employed as Resident Surgeon

Physicians and Surgeons Physicians and Surgeons http://www.waterfordcountylibrary.i

e/en/familyhistory/tradedirectories/

Thomas Barry, Main Street, 1846Edward Paoli Drew, 1846,1856John Smith, 1846, 1856Pierce Heally, 1856, 1881Gabriel Redmond, 1881 (Medical

Officer at Cappoquin Dispensary)www.rcpi.ie College Registers 1692-www.rcsi.ie 1784 onwards

Workhouse Fever Workhouse Fever HospitalsHospitals

Poor Law Unions (1838) – Dungarvan, Kilmacthomas, Lismore and Waterford. Carrick-on-Suir and Youghal Unions served part of Co. Waterford

Each Workhouse had a Fever Hospital and a resident Medical Officer

Under the Medical Charities Act, 1851the PLUs were further divided into Dispensary Districts with a Dispensary (Doctor’s residence/surgery) staffed by a Dispensary Doctor. 22 in Co. Waterford

Visits to the Dispensary were by ticket Proof of lack of means was required

KILMEADEN KILMEADEN DISPENSARY PLAN DISPENSARY PLAN

Copyright Waterford County Archives

TALLOW – APPEAL TALLOW – APPEAL COPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES COPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES

Means – the rise of banks Means – the rise of banks and paper currency and paper currency

Banks were individual and family run businesses – national banks from end of 17th century onwards

Bankers notes – receipts for money lodged in their hands

Bank of Ireland Royal Charter 17831815 Trustees Savings Bank Hibernian Joint Stock Bank 1824 (RCs)Provincial Bank of Ireland 18251826 Amalgamation of Irish and English currency National Bank of Ireland 1834Agricultural and Commercial Bank of Ireland

1834 (1836)1861 Post Office Savings Bank

Richard Musgrave Promissory Note Richard Musgrave Promissory Note

FrontBack

PROMISSORY NOTE: PROMISSORY NOTE: JOSEPH WARD JOSEPH WARD COPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES COPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES

DELAY IN PAYMENT – DELAY IN PAYMENT – COPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES COPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES

MARY MCNEMARAMARY MCNEMARACOPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES COPYRIGHT WATERFORD COUNTY ARCHIVES

BANKING CRISISBANKING CRISIS William Colville, Esq., Director of the Bank of Ireland, before a Parliamentary Committee

in 1804 " I remember perfectly well, that in 1753, the circulation of paper in Dublin from the

private bankers was so general and extensive, that in receiving £1,000, there was not £10 of it in gold at that time. I remember that exchange was near three per cent above par; the consequence of which was, that the bankers of Dublin, of whom there were as many as at present, if not more, were in competition with one another to send their specie over to London, and to get bank bills at four per cent. above par, bringing a clear profit to that extent. The consequence of this shewed itself in the succeeding year; all the banks failed except Messrs. Latouche‘s house, and Sir William Newcomens under the name at that time of Gleadowe and Co. ; and these two banks paid off their entire paper : there followed a total annihilation of bank paper in Ireland at that time…but the result was, that multitudes of people were ruined ; the convulsion was exceedingly severe, many tenants threw up their lands, and there was no person connected with the three Southern provinces of Ireland that did not suffer either immediately or remotely”

1733 Act for the relief of the Bank of Samuel Burton and others (1700-1733) 1755 An Act passed for the relief of the creditors of the bank lately kept by

William Lennox and George French, of the city of Dublin. The above bank was carried on in Dublin from 1751 to 1755, when both the partners absconded. As their creditors were numerous, and the ordinary mode of legal settlement difficult and expensive, this Act was passed to afford a more speedy remedy.

3rd March 1797 Bank of Ireland suspended its cash payments 1820 Banking Crisis 1820-1830s Runs on gold. Linked to O’Connell and Irish nationalist

movement

Munster Bank LtdMunster Bank Ltd Munster Bank established October1864 1870 Munster Bank merged with La Touche private bank in Dublin Local branch network - small towns Focus on agricultural community - farmers High ratio of lending to deposits 25 January 1883 William Shaw “...that some of the Directors are largely

overdrawing their accounts without security and that the Bank is in a very serious position now with those Directors. I now assure you here publicly that there is not the slightest foundation for any such statement…”

July 1884 Shaw resigned and announced that £75,000 be moved from reserves to Bad and Doubtful Debts account

20 November 1884 Shaw filed a claim of £40,000 for services to the bank since 1884 in the Court of Chancery

26 June 1885 Dublin shareholders case against directors. Shaws statement in January “as false a statement as had ever been made”

11 July 1885 Munster Bank failed – Bank of Ireland refused to honour its cheques due to it being over its £400,000 overdraft

Robert Farquharson manager of Dame Street Branch absconded with £90,000 on 24 July. Since 1880s he had been rifling the banks accounts

Shaw and “crony” directors bankrupt – shareholders lost all capital

MUNSTER AND LEINSTER BANK MUNSTER AND LEINSTER BANK LTD. LTD.

2 days after the closure of the Munster at a public meeting presided over by the Mayor of Cork Shaw claimed he could get the bank back with a loan of £200,000 in London on bank’s securities

A committee was formed to re-establish the bankSupport sought from Munster inhabitants – Duke

of Devonshire in particular was approached for support

Local people became shareholders £5 shares Munster and Leinster Bank established 19th

October 1885. Cork, Dublin and 9 other branches1894 Waterford and Lismore branches added1899 Waterford County Council moved from

Provincial Bank to Munster and Leinster Bank at its first meeting

CONCLUSIONCONCLUSIONDevelopment of institutions to

improve public healthDevelopment of institutions and much

broader interaction of people with banking and with savings and investment

Development of new technologies and new advances in health and wealth

Disposable Income – what do people do?