Heritage in Danger? The Peter Hills Charity School

I went on an organized walking tour of Rotherhithe recently, with 10 other people, all of whom were new to the area.  Our tour leader,  Ken Titmuss, took us to all of the main sites in Rotherhithe Village and Lower Road, and of course we visited the famous Peter Hills Charity School.  The school is one of the jewels in Rotherhithe's crown.  Or it was.

Peter Hills was a seafarer, Master Mariner and Brother of Trinity House, a substantial and influential individual, interested in the welfare of the community.  The Peter Hills charity school was established in 1613 for the children of local sea-men, a remarkable act of social conscience and good will.  Its original home no longer stands but it was moved in 1795 to today's 70 St Mary Rotherhithe Street, a former residence that dates to the early 1700s.  I have covered the school on a previous post if you want to know more about its history.  The school was furnished with two statues at first floor level, a boy and a girl dressed in the school's uniform.  The two statues remain today.

Unfortunately, the statues and the rest of the building are rapidly deteriorating as the photographs show.  The ground floor windows are boarded up, the paintwork on the statues is peeling, leaving the underlying material exposed to the elements, some of the masonry is damaged, and the woodwork is decaying rapidly.

Does anyone know if anything is being done about this?  If there is a plan for its renovation?  The neighbouring rectory is being redeveloped, I am told sympathetically, for housing, and it would be nice to think that the Charity School building will also be cared for now that it is in desperate need of assistance.

Arson at Brunswick Quay, Greenland Dock

The Brunswick Quay Residents Association (BQRA) have sent out a message asking residents to be careful to secure their wheelie bins after another deliberate fire was set in a bin in one of the recessed entrance areas beneath a block of flats along Brunswick Quay in the early hours of Saturday 29 August.  The photographs on this post show some of the damage that was inflicted.  As you can see, the burning was extensive and the blistering of the surfaces shows how hot it became under the roof, putting the overhead apartment at serious risk.  The wooden doors hiding metres and electrical equipment were completely burned off, leaving the equipment exposed to the fire.  Matters could have been much, much worse.

This is the second time this year that a fire has been set in a bin. The previous one was very serious and could have resulted in loss of life.  The fire caused so much damage to the flats that the residents were forced to leave their homes whilst reconstruction work took place, and the scaffolding for the repairs is still standing.

The police are investigating the arson but are reminding residents to minimise the danger of a serious fire in their properties by locking bins away where possible, padlocking bins, or at least placing them so they are not located directly underneath properties.  Obviously, removing combustible items from beneath the flats is also recommended. Such examples of arson should probably serve as a warning to anyone in the area, not just Brunswick Quay, who keep their bins in recessed areas beneath flats or upper floors of houses.

Two life-belt stands have also been burned down in Russia Dock Woodland, which may suggest that the Brunswick Quay examples could be be part of a larger problem.

Today a bin full of wood has been left by the entrance under one of the apartments in Brunswick Quay, and this is being reported to the police because it looks suspiciously like a pre-made bonfire.  Should you seen anything else suspicious, feel that anyone is behaving suspiciously or are concerned by anything unusual, please contact the police immediately. 

  

 

 

Campaign to protect the Lavender Pump House

Yesterday's post reporting damage to the Lavender Pump House is followed by some better news today.  A number of residents are pulling together to discuss measures to prevent the continued deterioration of the historic building, and to find ways to save it for the future.  There is now a website with a blog dedicated to the task, and a Facebook page where people can join in the discussion.

To see the website:
https://savethepumphouse.wordpress.com

To join us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/savethepumphouse 

Campaign to save The Clipper pub

The Clipper is a 1930s building on Rotherhithe Street and until recently it was a really nice pub with a great atmosphere and some lovely people on both sides of the bar.  It was open all day, served excellent food, hosted events and darts matches and had some great live bands and themed parties at Halloween, Christmas, New Year's Eve and Burns Night.  And it was a great place to relax, a stone's throw from the Thames Path. The brewery bought out the landlord and since then two planning applications have been submitted, both intending to replace the pub with blocks of flats, removing yet another community resource in Rotherhithe.  Local residents have successfully defeated both planning applications and there is now a campaign to save the pub.  The Save The Clipper campaign has its own Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/savetheclipper/?fref=nf, where people have been adding their good memories about the pub going back many years.  They are hoping to add many more members to demonstrate our support for the survival of one of the few surviving pubs in Rotherhithe so please join up if you would like to see The Clipper saved.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/savetheclipper/?fref=nf

 

St Olave's Infirmary, Rotherhithe, 1875-1985

The Infirmary in 1888

Work on St Olave's Infirmary began in 1873 and opened in 1875 sandwiched between Deptford Lower Road (now Lower Road, SE16 2TU) and Southwark Park. Located next to the St Olave's Poor Law Union workhouse (which I have covered on an earlier post), its creation was a requirement following the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867, which required that infirmary accommodation be separate from workhouse buildings. 

The new building was a substantial enterprise.  It covered a 2 acre site and was divided into three components -  a male block, a female block, which together had a capacity of 175 patients, and an administrative block in between them. It was run by a Board of Guardians.  The Boards of Guardians were bodies who were responsible, by law (the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834) for the management and administration of workhouses and related buildings. Those serving on a Board of Guardians were elected by the owners of the properties that were liable for the poor rate, a tax gathered by residents in order to provide provision for the disadvantaged. The board was elected annually.  Although the workhouse closed in 1884, the infirmary stayed open until the late 1970s, and its history between those dates is well recorded.  It was so successful that it had already been extended in 1877 and was expanded several times during its career,

The Infirmary in 1914.  The main change from the
1894 map was the addition of a large laundry.

In the 1920s its name changed to the Bermondsey and Rotherhithe Infirmary, but locally it continued to be known as St Olave's.On 1st April 1930 control passed from the Board of Guardians to the London City Council, at which point it was renamed St Olave's Hospital.  The main difference between an infirmary and a hospital was the sort of care that was offered.  Whereas in hospitals specialized medical professionals and surgeons performed life-saving services, infirmaries were more about basic procedures, provision of medication, and simple levels of care, often lacking any surgical facilities. Maternity, geriatric and convalescent care made up a large part of their activities. Accordingly, three operating theatres were installed at the hospital, which improved its ability to treat medical patients and enabled it to take on and surgical cases as well.  

The entrance to the infirmary in the 1920s on
Lower Road

Rotherhithe was badly damaged during the Second World War and although the main areas targeted were on the peninsula of Rotherhithe, other areas suffered too, and St Olave's was damaged several times.   The maternity block was first part of the hospital to receive damage and other bombs inflicted minor damage until in August 1944 a V1 flying bomb damaged a third of the hospital buildings. Amazingly no-one was killed. In the 14th November 1944 the third of five V-weapons to hit this immediate vicinity fell on the forecourt of the hospital, which had to be evacuated. Later bombs also continued to inflict damaged and by the end of the war most of the oldest sections of the hospital had been destroyed.  The number of beds available was severely reduced. The last bomb to hit Bermondsey fell on 26th March 1945 and exploded by the nurses home of St Olaves Hospital on Gomm Road.

A London City Council hospital ward in the 1930s

In 1948 the Hospital became part of the National Health Service.  From 1948 St Olave's was administered by the Bermondsey and Southwark Hospital Management Committee under the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.  In 1954 the hospital had fewer beds than before the war, partly due to the legacy of the war damage, but also because new regulations demanded that beds were more widely spaced, meaning that more space per bed was required, which left the hospital with reduced capacity.  There was also a shortage of nurses, which meant that not all the available beds could actually be used. Nursing numbers were soon supplemented by recruiting from overseas and this resulted in an influx of different nationalities into the area.  Rotherhithe had always had a multi-national component, with a large Scandinavian presence from the days of the Baltic timber trade.

By the end of the 1950s the hospital had 12 wards and had become very antiquated and although a number of improvements were made, including the addition of a children wards, the modernization of three of the wards and the building of a refreshment pavilion, it continued to be under-funded, although the number of beds eventually increased.  

The only surviving gate house, with
the plaque commemorating
the birth of Michael Caine.
Photograph by Martin Addison

In 1966 St Olave's was subsumed into the Guy's Hospital Group under the auspices of the South East Thames Regional Health Authority.  Matters improved considerably, with the expansion of its remit and significant investment into its infrastructure.  It was the first general hospital to take in psychiatric patients, and dedicated facilities were provided to support this new initiative.  Upgrades to the rest of the hospital took place in 1971 and 1973.

Following the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 St Olave's has been administered by the South Thames Regional Health Authority and in 1974 St Olave's became the responsibility of Lewisham and North Southwark District Health Authority.  In 1979, the hospital was closed to save costs, its patients transferred to other hospitals in the region.  Although the closure was supposed to be temporary the hospital never re-opened and an official announcement of its closure was made in 1985.

Most of the building had already decayed during its period of closure and was eventually demolished.  During the 1990s it was replaced by the Ann Moss Way housing estate.  However, one of the gatehouses is a fortunate and welcome survivor.

A blue plaque commemorates the birth of Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite), son of a local fish porter, who was born in the charity wing of the Hospital on 14th March 1933.



With particular thanks to the Lost Hospitals of London website at http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/stolaves.html
St Olave's

A history of the Rotherhithe Workhouse on Lower Road - 1728-1884

The Rotherhithe Workhouse in 1820. By George Yates.

Workhouses were, crudely, buildings owned and administered by the state, in which impoverished people lived and for whom work was provided in return for their keep.  They are an 18th and early 19th Century phenomenon but they had been a long time coming.  The 1601 Act for the Relief of the Poor put the care of the poor firmly into the hands of parishes, who funded their poor relief by imposing a poor-rate tax on property owners.  In its earliest phases the sort of assistance that the poor could expect was usually in the form of hand-outs of essentials like food, clothing and fuel with which to cook and heat their homes.  However, the concept of the workhouse gradually began to evolve as a means of improving efficiencies both in terms of cost and the administration of relief.  Intentions were good, and these early forms of workhouse were successful.

Darton's 1817 map shows the location of the
workhouse (highlighted here in red).
Copyright Mapco.net

These institutions were formalized with a 1723 act that gave parishes the freedom to deny the poor any form of relief unless they moved into the workhouse, where they were given shelter, clothing and food in return for labour.   Not all workhouses were purpose built, but there was a growing trend in that direction throughout the 18th Century.  Poor law unions were an outcome of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, and these were responsible for joining together parish management of the poor and creating big, purpose built workhouses to create economies and scale and centralize operations, the Poor Law Unions.  As well as dormitory accommodation and work rooms, they also included infirmary facilities.  These big 19th Century workhouses received bad publicity from a variety of sources, notably Charles Dickens, but although not all of them were the horror stories that the word conjours up, many clearly were.  They were run on a minimal budget. Conditions were basic, food  unappetising, beds arranged in large hospital style-large dormitories with men segregated from women, and all inmates had to wear uniforms. Workhouses were intended to deter potential residents. They were very much a last-ditch option for the poor and were often the dumping ground for orphans, the elderly, unmarried mothers and the mentally impaired. However, although they were organized along the lines of the prisons of the day, residents were free to leave at any time.

Rotherhithe workhouse was established in the 1720s and came under the St Mary Rotherhithe Parish, and its Vestry.  There are almost no images of the workhouse so I have supplemented this post with photographs and paintings from other London workhouses, as examples.

The workhouse is first mentioned in the Vestry Minutes on April 29th of 1722 when the proposal to establish a workhouse was put forward. Nothing was actioned at that time and it was only in 1728 when the proposal resulted in a workhouse on Deptford Lower Road (since 1888 simply Lower Road, opposite today's Neptune Street). 

An example of a work room in a London workhouse.
From Pyne and Combe's book (1810) "The Workhouse"

It is described in a remarkable book that describes numerous workhouses in the early 18th Century.  Assembled by the Society for Promoting Christian knowledge, a London group that supported and promoted workhouses, it described the Rotherhithe workhouse as follows:  "A Workhouse is lately set up here, near the Footway to Deptford, and though it is not yet finished, there are 8 Poor Men and Women, and 32 Boys and Girls put into it, under the Care of a Mistress; their chief Employment at present is the picking Ockam." Ockam, or more usually oakum, will be discussed below.

The Rotherhithe workhouse continued to remain under the care of the St Mary Rotherhithe Parish, and its Vestry until 1836. From 1836-1869 the workhouse was placed into the care of the St Mary Rotherhithe Board of Guardians.  Boards of Guardians were bodies who were responsible, by law (the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834) for the management and administration of workhouses and related buildings. Those serving on a Board of Guardians were elected by the owners of the properties that were liable for the poor rate, a tax gathered by residents in order to provide provision for the disadvantaged. The board was elected annually.

This illustration from the Police Illustrated News gives
an idea of the light in which the workhouses were regarded

The Workhouses website (http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Lancet/Rotherhithe.shtml) reproduces an account from the 1865 edition of The Lancet, which describes the workhouse as follows at this time:  "The workhouse consists of three distinct blocks of building. The main block, which fronts the east, is 300 years old, and is now used for the "able-bodied" and for offices. The block which lies on the west was built in 1837, and is now occupied by the "old and infirm," and by the midwifery and nursery wards." The report mentions that the infirmary was often the victim of the high water table, but that drainage was generally good.  It also says that the handling of the infirm within the workhouse was less than ideal:  "The position and pay of the medical officer is a deplorable subject. He visits the house daily, and has about forty sick, besides the aged and infirm, under treatment; and attends about twelve midwifery cases yearly. For the whole of this duty, and for supplying and dispensing all the drugs, Mr. Firth receives £35 per annum! Any comment on these facts would be quite superfluous.  The mortality of the year 1864 was eighty-eight, and presents nothing remarkable; and there is no evidence of the outbreak of epidemic disease as far back as the records extend. This last circumstance is one for which the guardians are certainly not to be thanked." Sanitation was clearly appalling and the report takes the management severely to task on this as well. See the above page for the full report.

Weller's 1868 map of Rotherhithe,
showing the workhouse (in red)
sandwiched between Lower Road and
Southwark Park. Rotherhithe was
becoming increasingly busy.

Another bad report followed, this time from one of the workhouse's own employees. In the mid 1860s a nurse from the workhouse infirmary, one Matilda Beeton, wrote with such effect to the Poor Law Board that the master and matron of the workhouse were both dismissed following an investigation. Matilda Beeton worked as Head Nurse at the workhouse infirmary from 9 July 1864 and left 16 April 1865.  Here's the text of her letter (with thanks to the rgreeen.org.uk website for reproducing it):

"On the 9th of July 1864 I took office, as head nurse, in Rotherhithe Infirmary, where I had 50 patients sick and infirm; with this number I found I was really able to personally superintend the actual nursing, which is as much as one paid nurse can do with any satisfaction to herself or those by whom she is employed. For this number of patients I had four pauper nurses, all of whom were old and inexperienced; two could read but neither could write.

Of the four nurses allowed me three were all I could expect them to be; drunk only when they had the means or the chance of getting anything to drink; the fourth was a confirmed drunkard, so much so, that I was in constant fear of her doing bodily harm to the sick patients. She would beat them till they were black with bruises, more especially those who were unable to help themselves and friendless; and I found, by the patients, that they lived in fear of her, and only by giving her their beer, or other nourishment, could they feel themselves safe to ask for the most trifling thing to be done for them.

I complained to the matron and assistant master, and was told she had always done very well till I came there; they supposing she did not like a paid nurse over her. I must therefore do the best I could with her, as there was no one in the house she could put in her place.

Dinner at Marylebone workhouse

I then complained of the dirty state the patients were in, when the matron said I must get used to all that, as workhouses were not like hospitals.

When I had been there about four months, I had a pauper sent to the sick ward from some ward up at the workhouse. I understood this poor creature had been in the house for some time, she was an imbecile. This poor patient I believed sensitive to all her sufferings and yet she was the victim to the most cruel treatment from this inhuman pauper nurse.

This state of things went on till one morning I sent for the master to come to the infirmary. Immediately on his coming, I told him he must that moment remove the sick ward nurse, or I would go and bring in the guardians to see what could be done in the shape of finding me another nurse; the master, fearing I should do so, very reluctantly ordered what he thought a model nurse to the body of the house.

I do not think I am wrong in saying many a poor creature went to their home long before the time, by the hands of this inhuman nurse. It was my firm impression that when patients had got bad and troublesome she gave opium, put them on the left side, and so they passed out of this world as natural deaths.

Respecting things for the use of the patients, there was an insufficiency of everything throughout the whole infirmary.

As regards the sick diet, I considered on the whole it was insufficient; the mutton broth and beef tea were only mockery, the meat was more often than not one lump of fat, and nearly cold, so that a patient very ill could not eat it. Milk in the sick ward was never heard of till I asked the doctor to allow it with arrow-root; then the master made a great fuss about it. I had forgotten to say nightdresses were not allowed for the sick patients, with the exception of three or four of the union blue, made out of the skirts of worn out dresses. Patients were allowed to wear their own if they could pay for the washing; and I found they often had to sell their nourishment to do it.

On the whole, it did not seem to me that a pauper's life was regarded in any other light than the sooner they were dead the better.

I left Rotherhithe workhouse 16th April 1865."

Matilda Beeton
23 April 1866"

"The elderly at the workhouse" by Hubert von Herkomer

In 1869 the workhouse became part of St Olave's Union, under the administration of the St Olave Board of Guardians, named for the Church of St Olaf at London Bridge.  The Vestry of St Mary Rotherhithe continued to work with the poor, offering help, building churches, improving education and generally helping to support those in need.  The workhouse played a different role, consolidating those who had no other recourse but to turn to the workhouse for shelter.

Although it had included an infirmary of its own, the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 required that infirmary accommodation be separate from workhouse buildings and a separate infirmary was built next door in 1873.This will be covered in another post.

Residents of the Rotherhithe workhouse were employed in a number of tasks, many of which were directly related to the local shipping industry.  In the early Nineteenth Century a rope manufacturing operation supplied new rope to ship builders and owners.  Stephen Humphrey says that in 1836 it turned a profit of £592 2s and 2d (with thanks to the National Archives Currency Convertor, £582 2s 2d would have the same spending worth of around £25,670.98 - very impressive). Another of their tasks was the creation of oakum.  Old ropes and cables ("junk") were chopped into manageable lengths and these were in turn picked apart to reduce them to their component fibres.   These were then tarred and used as packing ("caulking") to fill gaps in wooden planking of ship hulls and decking.  It was a laborious job, and was commonly assigned to workhouse inmates.

Failure to comply with workhouse rules resulted in severe punishment.  Stephen Humphrey gives the example of four girls who were housed in the women's block in 1835 who were threatened with deportation to Tasmania.  

The workhouse closed in 1884, but the separate infirmary continued to operate until the 1970s, and will be described on another post. In 1889 the workhouse was still standing because the Minutes of the Board of Guardians state that it was "dilapidated and unused."  

Today, the land where the workhouse used to be located is covered by the residential estate on Ann Moss Way.  Although there are remains of the infirmary that survived the demise of the workhouse, there are no extant remains of the workhouse itself.

Ann Moss Way

With thanks to Stephen Humphrey's book "The Story of Rotherhithe" for untangling much of the history.  For more about workhouses and their history see Peter Higginbottom's fascinating and comprehensive Workhouses website.