Irish partition and poor law reform in interwar Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This article examines poor law hospital reform during the 1920s and 1930s. Northern Ireland’s failure to dissolve the poor law system until the 1940s is viewed as one of its major failures in health policy, as the other countries in Britain and Ireland had broken up the system by 1929. Recent historiographical examinations of interwar healthcare have challenged older negative accounts of the period and instead identified diverse, vibrant and expanding health systems. Much of this has concentrated on English and Welsh health systems or comparisons between large, industrialized nations. Research remains lacking on the trajectory of healthcare in smaller, nascent countries that witnessed political realignment and new settlements during an era of transformation in empire. Irish partition and the establishment of two new states – Irish Free State and Northern Ireland – represented a major reshaping of the British Empire. This article concentrates on Northern Ireland and argues that where local workhouse infirmaries were transformed into district hospitals local authorities brought positive improvements in healthcare evident in many countries. Such improvements were, however, limited to the north-east and the west and south of Northern Ireland, which were marked by political and religious tensions, witnessed limited reform. Local authority policy innovation was thwarted by state interference in local government, which included the temporary dissolution of dissenting Nationalist authorities and gerrymandering of electoral boundaries. This article also argues that the failure to dissolve the poor law was a result of limited medical professional interest in reform. Northern Ireland’s powerful medical profession was key to shaping the direction of Northern Irish policy. This was a result of the devolved administration’s limited expertise in policy making and the dominance of the constitutional question and Nationalist–Unionist divisions in politics.

KEYWORDS:

• Ireland
• partition
• workhouses
• interwar
• healthcare
• reform

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Kenny, “Ireland and the British Empire: an Introduction,” 10–11.

2. Clark, “Wild Workhouse Girls and the Liberal Imperial State,” 23; Crossman, Poverty and the Poor Law in Ireland, 1850–1914, 2; Gray, “Conceiving and Constructing the Irish Workhouse, 1836–45,” 23; and Thomas, “Manifestations of Institutional Reform and Resistance to Reform in Ulster Workhouses,” 876.

3. Harkness, Northern Ireland since 1920, 4.

4. Fox, Health Policies, Health Politics: the British and American Experience, 1911–65; Hennock, The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany; Gorsky, “Hospitals, Finance and Health System Reform in Britain and the United States”; and Doyle, “Healthcare before Welfare States.”

5. Darwin, “A Third British Empire.”

6. County infirmaries were separate from the poor law and were partly funded by county/city councils and charitable sources.

7. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, CAB/4/267. “Poor Law and Medical Services Reformation,” 21 August 1930.

8. Poor Law Reform Commission (Ireland). Appendix to the Report of the Vice-Regal Commission on Poor Law Reform in Ireland; Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and the Relief of Distress.

9. Levene, et al., Cradle to Grave: Municipal Medicine in Interwar England and Wales; Doyle, The Politics of Hospital Provision in Early Twentieth-Century Britain; Gorsky, Mohan with Willis, Mutualism and Healthcare.

10. Lucey, “These Schemes will Win for Themselves the Confidence of the People”; and Lucey and Crossman, eds., Healthcare in Ireland and Britain from 1850.

11. See Jackson, “Local Government in Northern Ireland, 1920–73,” 57, 60.

12. Lucey and Gosling, “Paying for Health”; and Martin, “Ending the Pauper Taint.”

13. Crossman, Poverty and the Poor Law in Ireland, 1850–1914; Barrington, Health, Medicine and Politics in Ireland, 1900–1970; and Cassell, Medical Charities, Medical Politics.

14. Lucey, “These Schemes will Win for Themselves the Confidence of the People,” 50.

15. U.K. Parliamentary Paper, Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, for the Year Ended 31 March, 1914, cd. 7561, xxxix.595 (London, H.M.S.O, 1914).

16. British Parliamentary Paper, Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, for the Year Ended 31 March, 1917, H.C. 1917-18, Cd. 8765, xvi.257.

17. Ulster Herald, October 28, 1916.

18. L.G.B. Report for 1914, 295.

19. British Parliamentary Paper, Annual report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, for the year ended 31st March, 1920, H.C., 1921 cmd. 1432, xiv.781.

20. For a regional analysis of poor relief in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Ireland, see Cousins, Poor Relief in Ireland 1851–1914, 31–80; and Crossman, Poverty and the Poor Law in Ireland 1850–1914, 52–62.

21. Cousins, Poor Relief in Ireland 1851–1914, 59.

22. Purdue, “Poor Relief in the North of Ireland.”

23. British Parliamentary Paper, Annual Report of the Local Government Board for Ireland, for the Year Ended 31 March, 1917, H.C. 1917-18, Cd. 8765, xvi.257.

24. Purdue, “Poverty and Power,” 567–83.

25. Urquhart, Women in Ulster Politics, 1890–1940, 112.

26. Purdue, “Poverty and Power,” 583. For an analysis of regional differences internal to Ulster in poor relief expenditure, see Purdue, “Poor Relief in the North of Ireland,” 23–36.

27. Report of the Irish Public Health Council on the Public Health and Medical Services in Ireland; Milne, Stacking the Coffins, 232.

28. Knirck, “The Dominion of Ireland,” 230.

29. Lucey, End of the Irish Poor Law, 2, 18.

30. Lucey, “These Schemes will Win for Themselves the Confidence of the People.”

31. Frohman, “The Break-up of the Poor Laws,” 982; and Finlayson, Citizen, State, and Welfare in Britain, 165–6.

32. Quoted in Lucey, End of the Irish Poor Law, 160.

33. PRONI, DEV/11/1. E.W. Leach, Ass. Sec. of Local Government Board to Antrim Board of Guardians, March 9, 1921.

34. PRONI, BG/20/BC/5. M.O. Dr McCloy report of Lisnaskea Workhouse, November 9, 1922.

35. Strabane Chronicle, January 1, 1921

36. Strabane Chronicle, February 25, 1922.

37. Strabane Chronicle, February 11, 1922.

38. Lucey, End of the Irish Poor Law.

39. Daly, The Buffer State; and O’Halpin, “The System of City and County Management.”

40. Potter, Municipal Revolution in Ireland, 289–301.

41. Strabane Chronicle, April 8, 1922.

42. Strabane Chronicle, September 16, 1922

43. Hawkins, “Bates, Sir (Richard) Dawson.”

44. Ollerenshaw, “Northern Ireland and the British Empire-Commonwealth, 1923–61,” 242.

45. Quoted in Bewer and Higgins, Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland, 1600–1998, 92.

46. Pitsula, Keeping Canada British, 1; and Vandenberg and Gallagher-Cohoon, “Health, Charity and Citizenship.”

47. Herd Thompson, “Canada and the ‘Third British Empire’, 1901–39,” 93.

48. Whyte, “How Much Discrimination Was There under the Unionist Regime, 1921–68?”

49. Mulholland, “Why Did Unionists Discriminate.”

50. For discrimination in Northern Ireland see Gudgin, “Discrimination in Housing and Employment under the Stormont Administration.”

51. Elliott, “The Northern Ireland Electoral System: A Vehicle for Disputation.”

52. Harkness, Northern Ireland since 1920, 25–8.

53. Lucey, End of the Irish Poor Law?

54. Mid-Ulster Mail, September 19, 1936.

55. Belfast Newsletter, March 18, 1922.

56. Mid-Ulster Mail, May 31, 1924.

57. Mid-Ulster Mail, June 4, 1924; Derry Journal, June 4, 1924.

58. Mid-Ulster Mail, July 13, 1929, March 8, 1920, September 19, 1936.

59. Kidd, “A Ministry of Health for Northern Ireland,” 235.

60. Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, Survey of the Hospital Services, 26.

61. Lawrence, “The Health Services in Northern Ireland,” 294.

62. Home Affairs on Local Government Administration in Northern Ireland, 1931, 68.

63. Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, Survey of the Hospital Services, 26.

64. PRONI, HOS/9/1/1/4. Minutes of Route Hospital Committee, Ballymoney, April 5, 1945

65. Home Affairs on Local Government Administration in Northern Ireland, 1930, 57.

66. Levene, “Between Less Eligibility and the N.H.S.,” 325.

67. Kidd, “A Ministry of Health for Northern Ireland,” 235.

68. Home Affairs on Local Government Administration in Northern Ireland, 1926, 47.

69. Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, Survey of the Hospital Services, 26.

70. Belfast Newsletter, December 11, 1922.

71. Belfast Newsletter, December 18, 1925.

72. Report of Departmental Commission on Local Government Administration, 115.

73. Strabane Chronicle, December 27, 1920.

74. Report of Departmental Commission on Local Government Administration, 106.

75. Home Affairs on Local Government Administration, 1926, 47.

76. PRONI, HOS/5/1/9/B/1. Moyle District Hospital, Larne, Register of Insured Patients, 1934–48.

77. Home Affairs on Local Government Administration in Northern Ireland, 1927, 54.

78. Lucey, “These Schemes will Win for Themselves the Confidence of the People.”

79. Lucey and Gosling, “Paying for Health”; Gosling, Payment and Philanthropy in British Healthcare, 1918–49; Gorsky, Mohan with Willis, Mutualism and Healthcare; and Doyle, The Politics of Hospital Provision in Early Twentieth-Century Britain.

80. Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, Survey of the Hospital Services, 14.

81. Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, Survey of the Hospital Services, 13–14.

82. PRONI, HOS/9/1/1/4. Minutes of Route Hospital Committee, Ballymoney, November 30, 1944.

83. Hickey, “The Problem of the Aged in Northern Ireland,” 151.

84. Lucey, “These Schemes will Win for Themselves the Confidence of the People.”

85. Levene, “Between Less Eligibility and the N.H.S.,” 337; and Gorsky, “To Regulate and Confirm Inequality?,” 615.

86. Buckland, The Factory of Grievances, 160–3.

87. PRONI, CAB/4/267. “Poor Law and Medical Services Reformation,” August 21, 1930.

88. Northern Ireland House of Commons Debates, March 6, 1928, vol. 9, pp. 29–30.

89. PRONI, CAB/4/293. “Reform of Poor Law, Medical, Public Health and Local Government Services,” November 11, 1931.

90. Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis.

91. Barrington, Health, Medicine and Politics in Ireland, 1900–1970.

92. Martin, “Ending the Pauper Taint,” 230.

93. Bew, Gibbons and Patterson, Northern Ireland, 1921–2001.

94. Nolan, “Creating Jobs, Manufacturing Unity,” 7.

95. Lucey, “On the Brink of Universalism.”

96. “Ireland,” British Medical Journal, 1113.

97. Northern Ireland House of Commons Debates, vol. 13, May 19, 1931, 1903–4.

98. Gorsky, “Hospital, Finance and Health System Reform,” 371.

99. For example, see McComb and Peatt, “National Health Insurance Notes,” 65–6.

100. Lucey and Gosling, “Paying for Health,” 83.

101. Northern Ireland Parliamentary Debates (Commons), vol. 13, March 10, 1931, 236.

102. Gorsky, “Hospitals, Finance and Health System Reform in Britain and the United States, c. 1910–1950,” 367.

103. Edwards, A History of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, 8–12.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council under Grant [AH/J003816/1].

Notes on contributors

Donnacha Seán Lucey

Donnacha Seán Lucey gained his PhD in Maynooth University. He has a teaching and research background in the history of public health, comparative and regional healthcare, health inequalities and residential/institutional welfare and care along with the history of late nineteenth-century social, agrarian and political movements. His work has a wide scope and concentrates on developments in Ireland – both north and south – and Great Britain while also engaging in multi and inter-disciplinary perspectives from multiple fields including medical humanities, political science and health management. In 2011 Dr Lucey published his first monograph, based on his PhD work, entitled Land, Popular Politics and Agrarian Violence in Late Nineteenth Century Ireland (University College Dublin Press, 2011). In 2015 Manchester University Press published his second monograph which explored welfare and healthcare reform in interwar Ireland. Also in 2015 Dr Lucey co-edited a collection of essays which explores healthcare in comparative and regional settings in Britain and Ireland from 1850 and was published by the Institute of Historical Research, London. He currently has a forthcoming monograph with Manchester University Press which examines healthcare in Northern Ireland from Irish partition to the 1970s.