Ballinasloe Poor Law Union: Minute Book of Board of Guardians, 1915

Volume recording details of attendance and proceedings of weekly meetings relating to the maintenance, administration and financing of the workhouse, distribution of out-door relief, and the care of workhouse inmates relating to their accommodation and employment, and to medical, pastoral, educational, and dietary needs.  Minutes include details on the number of persons accommodated in the workhouse, and the number receiving outdoor relief ;   confirmation that various reports, financial and other records, such as the Workhouse Register, Provision Check Accounts, Out-door Relief Lists, Medical Officers’ books and reports of the Visiting Committee, the workhouse Master and other Officers’ were produced,  examined and approved together with details of required action relating to the information provided therein, and details of all monies received or paid, and all orders and cheques given, such as those required for the supply of food and clothing; details of rates collected, arrears, and declared irrecoverably in each electoral division ;  also includes details of orders and letters received from or written to the Poor Law Commissioners and others, and details of subsequent resolutions passed and instructions issued authorising required action;  details of the master’s report and resolutions adopted to address any issues raised therein ;   and from 1854 provision is included for minutes of the proceedings of the Board under the Medical Charities Acts and Nuisances Removal and Disease Prevention Acts, and subsequently under Public Health Acts ;  from 1874 the proceedings of the Board as the Sanitary Authority are recorded ;   and from 1893 the proceedings of the Board of Guardians acting as the Rural Sanitary Authority under the Labourers (Ireland) Acts are included.

The minutes are generally dated, and signed by the Clerk of the Union, the Chairman.   Includes an index to main resolutions passed and subjects discussed.

Includes

- Visiting Committee's Report, 'We visited the house on this day and found the place in good order, the several departments being clean, tidy and well kept.  Also visited the stores and found the provisions of good quality.  No complaints either in the Infirmary or any other portion of the house.  The farm management is all that could be desired' (p67).

- 'Resolved /- That the Dispensary Medical Officers be asked in the case of poor persons of unsound mind whom they consider it necessary to have removed from their homes to certify them as insane, and that the Relieving officers on receiving such certificates, procure the necessary House Form from the Asylum, and have the patient transmitted thereto, and that the workhouse Ambulance be at the disposal of the Relieving Officers for this purpose' (p121).

- '…In framing this temporary dietary the Guardians were mindful of the advice of the Board of Trade as to lessening the consumption of meat in the County, advice which the Members of the Board have found necessary to adopt in their own homes as well as by the impossibility at the time of getting a full supply of fresh meat during the whole week either by contract or purchase elsewhere.  The Guardians have never been disregardful of the interest of the inmates and would remind the Local Government Board that it was this Board, elected since the passing of the Local Government Act which first did away with Indian Meal Dietary of the Famine Times and gave the inmates the meat Dietary, which in the present crisis they thought well to moderate…'(p207).

- 'Letter from the Local Government Board ….referring to the Guardians Minutes of the 23rd ultimo containing an entry of a proposal the grant assistance to Mrs Hochdorfer the wife of an interned alien who is stated to be interned and stating that they have observed that the Guardians at their Meeting on the 16th October refused an application for assistance from this woman on a report in the case, appearing in the Guardians' Minutes of the 23rd October, is vague and inconclusive, the Board desire to be furnished with the full particulars of the circumstances of Mrs Hochdorfer which were before the Guardians when they allowed her relief, also calling for the full name and occupation of her husband prior to internment, the date and place of internment, and the maiden name of Mrs Hochdorfer' (p487).