The Administration of an Eighteenth-Century Provincial Hospital: The Royal Salop Infirmary, 1747–1830

Abstract

IN July 1737 there was distributed in Shrewsbury and throughout the neighbouring parts of Shropshire a pamphlet entitled 'A Proposal for Erecting an Infirmary for the Poor-Sick and Lame of this County and Neighbourhood'. Had it borne fruit, Salop Infirmary would have had a place among the earliest of the provincial hospitals, but the scheme met with no encouragement and almost seven years elapsed before it was revived again. In March 1744 a second pamphlet with the same title and in almost identical terms appeared. But prior to its publication, steps had been taken to ensure its success, for, according to an advertisement on the back page, a meeting of several gentlemen had been held during the previous Quarter Sessions at which a proposal to erect an infirmary had been unanimously approved. A further meeting was held at the ensuing Assizes to open a subscription and to consider the most effective means for promoting their object. A third pamphlet in April 1745 presented an encouraging list of subscriptions totalling (503 I5S. and the public were informed that this excellent design was in a fair way to be brought into execution. At a meeting of subscribers in the Grand Jury Room on I0 August I745 the Charity was formally embodied when it was resolved that 'the Society be distinguished by the Name of the Trustees of the Salop Infirmary'. There was a temporary suspension of activity during the opening phase of the '45 Rebellion, but in March ofthe following year, 1746, the grand design was again under way. Subscriptions rolled in, a half-built house was secured for conversion (thus saving the expense ofbuilding), staffwere appointed, the building was equipped, and on 25 April 1747 the first patients were admitted. In this building the 'Poor-Sick and Lame' continued to receive the best of treatment available according to the knowledge of the times for almost eighty years, until in 1827, being considered no longer adequate for its function, it was torn down and a new, more spacious infirmary was built in its place. This new building, the nucleus of the present Royal Salop Infirmary was opened at the Anniversary Meeting on Friday, 24 September I830. The gentlemen who in August 1745 embodied themselves into a Society of Trustees for the establishment and upkeep of an Infirmary in Salop might by a more timid generation have been thought to be embarking upon a very 34

Learning To Use Their Senses: Visitors to Voluntary Hospitals in Eighteenth‐Century England

“…It was not long after the establishment of voluntary hospitals in eighteenth-century England that a critique of the food served to patients became the standard complaint registered by governors. 69 It is no surprise that those who acted as official visitors to these institutions also spent much time testing the food, initially ensuring that it was of a satisfactory quality when first delivered to hospitals. Visitors also investigated any subsequent complaints regarding the quality of the food served to the hospital's patients.…”

The old poor law and medicine

“…By 1816, York was segregating its fever cases and as early as 1755 had excluded venereal disease. 21 The Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford excluded poor persons from the workhouses "lest they bring infectious disorders", and from 1802 it also excluded pregnant women, children under seven, lunatics, and "cases offits, smallpox, scrophulous, ulcers, cancers, consumption, dropsies etc. "22 The figures given in the Radcliffe Report for 1829-30 are 408 in-patients "cured" out of 932 and 176 outpatients "cured" out of 354.…”