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Birmingham Workhouse Dudley Road Western Road opened 1852

Child born in Birmingham Workhouse

I have just received the birth certificate for Mary Ann Cowdrill which shows only a mothers name of Rebecca Cowdrill and that the birth was at the Birmingham Workhouse on 20th May 1851.
I cannot find Rebecca on any census returns. Could anyone tell me how I can look at the 1851 Birmingham Workhouse Census return to see if she was there at the time - maybe her name was transcribed as something else.
Think I have found a record of her death in 1868 aged 49 this time spelt
Rebecca Crowdrill. She would have been around 32 when she had the baby.
Any help appreciated.
Gill
 
Hi Gill, on census returns workhouse's, prisons, asylums, etc were very often transcribed with just initals. So try looking for R Cowdrill you may be lucky.
 
Gill, the census for 1851 was taken on the eve of 30th March, so your Mary Ann was not born, and Rebecca may have gone into the workhouse just to have her baby.
 
Western Road Workhouse

My Great Grandfather Henry Warmon Holmes died in this workhouse in Nov 1878 from 'Cerebral Softening'

Then his daughter Myra Holmes, aged 20, gave birth to my Grandad John Henry Holmes in January 1883. She is described as a 'Gun barrel browner from Birmingham' No father was mentioned on his birth certificate. I cant find any trace of her anywhere after this date. Can anyone shed any light?

Does anyone know where firearms were made in 1883 in Birmingham? Was the BSA there then?

The twist is that my brother was diagnosed with lung cancer some years ago and was in Dudley Road Hospital, in a very old building which was possibly part of the old workhouse. He was very interested to know that he wasnt the first member of our family to be there.
 
Thought someone might be interested in this plan of Birmingham Workhouse - All Saints, Dudley Road, c.1885.

Judy
 
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Thank you for posting the plan, Judy. I don't think I have seen the smallpox hospital mentioned before, and I wonder were the Piggeries a part of the workhouse.

The workhouse was said to be the dreaded place to go, in fact I recall when my husbands granny was taken to Dudley Road to spend the last of her days in the geriatric ward, because she needed 24 hours nursing care, she reffered to it as the workhouse. But looking at Judy's plan it must have cost the city a great deal of money, there is the infirmary, a nursery, boys and girls schools, lying in ward, a boys home apart from the mens and womens quarters. if it had not been for the workhouse what would have happened to our ancesters - would they have been left to die on a park bench? Probably.
 
I'm sorry the plan wasn't clearer. The copy I have is similar. The plan and much of the information on the All Saints Workhouse come from Birmingham Reference Library. I found that my gt.grandfather's brother had been admitted to the City Asylum in Lodge Road in 1892, which was adjoining the Workhouse and he was labelled a lunatic. He remained in the Asylum for 17 years until his death. On obtaining his death certificate I discovered that his problem was Syncope of the heart and treatable today. At the same time his stepmother was in the Workhouse Infirmary!

Taken from Birmingham Historian 4, Spring/Summer 1989::

.... The Lichfield Street Workhouse was designed to contain 600 inmates but the rapid increase in the urban poor obliged the overseers to reconsider their options, as funds channelled into out-relief bit deeper into their budget. Two solutions were found. In 1797 an Asylum for the Infant Poor opened in Summer Lane to which many of the workhouse children were transferred. Secondly, work begain on the construction of a new Union Workhouse on Birmingham Heath. Finally opened on 29 March 1852, its key features were the perfect isolation of all classes and sexes of inmates. Originally built to house 1,160 persons, at the time of the 1881 census there were 2,291 inmates, not including a staff of 86. The overall cost of its construction and furnishing was £44,476. Again, in the absence of workhouse accounts, our chief source for the expenditure is in the minutes of the Board of Guardians up to 1930. In 1889 a new infirmary opened, renamed Dudley Road Hospital in 1912, when the workhouse itself became Western Road House. After this date it was no longer considered as a workhouse, but as a Poor Law Institution accommodating elderly and infirm paupers. In 1948 the building became Summerfield Hospital.

Judy
 
Di.Poppitt said:
and I wonder were the Piggeries a part of the workhouse
Click to expand...


It seems that "piggeries" were an essential part of the workhouse. At The Aston Union Workhouse, later to become Highcroft Hospital, "a range of piggeries to house 28 pigs that would consume waste food and surplus garden produce" were built at the time of the 1872 extension.
At Rubery Hill Asylum and Monyhall Colony there were farms which "raised pigs and grew enough vegetables to supply the needs of the inmates kitchen".


Colin
 
Thanks Colin I had a feeling that they might be, and it is a cheery thought that the poor souls who found themselves in the workhouse were fed well. :)
 
Thanks for the info on the Workhouses, many of which turned into hospitals
and mental hospitals. When I was five years old I was a patient at Dudley Road Hospital having my tonsils removed. This would be just after WW2 and looking back to the Children's Ward, where I spent about 7 days it was very dark and gloomy and I suspect not much had been done to the place since it was a workhouse. Prior to the op I was loaded on a trolley and wheeled outside on a gallery that led from one building to another. It was quite a long ride.

Parents were not allowed to visit children in hospital in those days unless they were desperately ill. The bath water was measured since they were on
war time measures and you were allowed a few inches. I was so happy to see my parents when they came to collect me:)
 
Anyone know where someone dying in the Workhouse or Asylum would be buried. Presumable it would be locally, so maybe in Warstone Lane or Key Hill?
 
Just found this forum re the workhouse, good plan of the site.

Also this site is of interest, with some maps of the area:

https://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~alan/family/G-AllSaints.html

It mentions the workhouse: "The Lunatic Asylum, next door to the Gaol (and with the same architect, Daniel Hill) was opened shortly after the prison, and was continually extended between 1851 and 1878.
The Fever Hospital, opened in 1874, later became All Saint's Hospital.
The Union Workhouse was built between 1850 and 1852, replacing the original buildings near the city centre. An infirmary was added in 1889, and from this developed Dudley Road Hospital"

This Union Workhouse was built to relieve the overcrowding of the one on the Lichfield Rd/Steelhouse Lane site in the city centre.

The maps clearly show the location of the Fever hospital and the asylum on the north side of the canal with the Smallpox hospital on the south with the workhouse. (The lunatic asylum closed in 2001 and is now used by the prison.)
 
GER22VAN said:
Would I be right to assume that not all those in the infirmary were inmates from the workhouse? I understand ....
Click to expand...

I think you are right, I also assume that not all people admitted to the infirmary were inmates - my gt gt gt grandfather died in the 'Workhouse, Dudley Rd' in 1874. He had plenty of family around him in the area, but I assume that he was too ill for them to care for him, death cert says cause of death was paralysis.
 
My great great grand farther died in December 1854 in a Birmingham work house. The death certificate states where he died, "Work House" but does not give the name or place where the work house was.The only clue is that it was in the district of All Saints Birmingham.

Can any one kindly tell me the name and where this work house was situated.?

Many thanks.
 
Hi there,try this link
https://www.workhouses.org.uk/index.h...rmingham.shtml

At the same time as the prison and lunatic asylum were being built, so was the Birmingham Union Workhouse. Standing alongside the the Dudley Road with its entrance in Western Road, it replaced the workhouse built in 1733 in Lichfield Street, now the top end of Corporation Street. The late 18th-century Birmingham Heath windmill was demolished to make way for J J Bateman's Tudor-style building. Originally built to house 1100 inmates, by 1881 its population was more than double that number. Poverty led to illness and gradually much of the workhouse was taken over by sick wards. Now only the entrance lodge survives, the so-called Gateway of Tears, and this is cuirrently out of use.

In 1889 the Workhouse Infirmary with 1100 beds was added in a pavilion plan, a model proposed by Florence Nightingale. A single corridor over 400 metres long linked nine separate wards in buildings placed alternately either side.

The facility became Dudley Road Hospital c1922. There have been innumerable alterations but many Victorian buildings survive. A large extension was opened in 1966 to house the Casualty and Out-Patients Department. Five metres up the wall a bronze statue twice life size called 'Compassion' depicts a mother with out-stretched arms guiding the first steps of her child. It was made in 1968 by John Bridgeman, Head of Sculpture at the Birmingham College of Art. This is now the City Hospital.
 
OC (Post 5) - It's not clear and I'm no good with old money, but I think this means that in 1811 they were using one shilling tokens and gave one pound cash for 20 of them (20 shillings to a pound) whereas in 1812 they moved to sixpence tokens and therefore required 40 of them?
 
Hi I am wondering if any one knows about the Union workhouse and infirmary in Dudley Road,I have had just had a pdf email from Gov uk regarding my grandfathers death,luckily this time it’s the right one after three try’s ,any way he lived at 55 Bissell Road but apparently died at 88 Dudley Road,I’m guessing that was the union work house.
 
I have done a quick map search and can't find 88 Dudley Road - looks as if even numbers were opposite the workhouse/hospital. The maps with numbers may be more modern but the numbers jump from 84 (a pub) to 92 on the maps I saw.
 
No 88 post 1878 would correspond to the Old Windmill Inn from 1880. However, between 1878 and 1879 the numbering changed from consecutive to odd numbers one side of the street, even the other side of the street. I did think it might refer to this earlier time, but , as can be seen from the map, there do not seem to be any number 88 , unless Heath Green cottage or Summerfield Cottage were numbered that way
map c 1889 showing dudley road around Summerfield park.jpg
 
O.C. said:
The original workhouse was built in 1733 in Lichfield Street round about were the Victoria Law Courts are today.The Picture shown in Reply 3 the wing on the left (built 1766)was the Infirmary and the wing on the right (built 1779)was a place for labour,both of the wings built at a later date.
Hutton wrote "The stranger would rather suppose it was the residence of a gentleman than of Six Hundred paupers"
This was knocked down when the new workhouse was built at Western Rd (Dudley Rd) in 1852 in 1889 the Infirmary was built.
Marston Green Orphanage was part of the Birmingham Workhouse and opened in 1880 which could house 466 children drafted from the Birmingham Workhouse, the boys learnt a trade and the girls household work. It was erected by the Birmingham Board of Guardians which ran the Workhouse till 1929 were it was transferred to the local authority and transferred to Regional Hospital in 1946
Click to expand...
We no longer seem to have an image on this thread of the early Birmingham Workhouse on Lichfield Street. Here it is.

Screenshot_20230827_150959_Chrome.jpg
 
lichfield st has for some reason always interested me...we have a thread here with some great photos

Lichfield Street, Birmingham

hi mike and phil...what i am actually looking for is a photo of the ebenezer chapel that was in steelhouse lane next to the queens head pub...it was demolished round about 1932...at no 18 was william greenway then came the glovers almeshouses.. then the chapel and at no 22 was the queens head...
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
 
I remember an entrance in Western Road to the Workhouse and it doesn't look inviting at all , how those poor misfortunes felt all those years ago entering there it's not worth thinking about . I know that it was converted to the geriatric unit to City Hospital , years ago in my youth it was feared by the elderly, the saying among them was "if you go in there , you won't be coming out" . I often wondered as I grew up if this was a possible heirloom of the old workhouse sad days indeed .
 
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