From Workhouse to World Class Research Institute :
History of the Newcastle
General Hospital site
The Workhouse
Newcastle General Hospital grew out of the Newcastle Union Workhouse. The workhouses were set up as a result of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. Before this act, local parishes were responsible for the raising and distribution of alms to the poor. The workhouse was to be a deterrent and was to operate on the principle of "less eligibility", i.e. conditions inside were to be less desirable than those of the poorest manual labourer outside. Conditions were harsh and punishments would be imposed for even trivial breaches of the rules.
The Newcastle Union Workhouse replaced four existing parish workhouses elsewhere in the city. The first buildings were opened in 1839. The buildings were concentrated in the south-eastern corner of the present site and comprised Adminstrative Buildings and the Workhouse. The workhouse provided accomodation for the able-bodied poor. There were also wards for the sick, maternity cases and "imbeciles"; a residential school for children; dining hall; laundry; bake house; stick house and workshops.
The Ordnance Survey map of 1864 shows the buildings on the route of the West Road. Although the location appears at first glance to be pleasantly rural and surrounded by fields, one of the many coal mines present in Newcastle in that era can be seen just to the south of the workhouse (Elswick Colliery).
(Image produced from the www.old-maps.co.uk service with permission of Landmark
Information Group Ltd. and Ordnance
Survey).
By 1851 the number of sick people needing care was putting great strain on the resources of the workhouse. In that year Henry Milvain proposed that a hospital be built on the site (the former hospital administration block, recently demolished, was named after him). Building finally started in 1868 and it was formally opened in 1870. The hospital at that time was known variously as the Workhouse Hospital, the Union Hospital or the Workhouse Infirmary. In 1921 the Board of Guardians set up separate admistration for the hospital, with the Medical Superintendent and Matron being answerable to a Hospital Committee and not the Master and Matron of the Workhouse. The name was changed to the Wingrove Hospital to attempt to remove the stigma of being part of the workhouse. In 1930 the workhouse system was abolished and the Guardians handed the hospital over to the City Council, at which time it changed it's name to Newcastle General Hospital and in 1948 it became part of the National Health Service.
Traces of the workhouse still remain, although many of the old buildings have now been demolished, and little remains of the 1870 hospital buildings.
The Tomlinson Teaching Centre building was formerly the workhouse dining room and some buildings in that complex still have their former names carved in the stonework such as Bake House and Sewing Room. Under the development plans proposed by Partnership West End the buildings in this part of the site would be retained and used for housing.
The entrance to the former "Vagrants Ward" is still marked on a gate post in the lane bounding the west side of the site. Tramps were admitted to this ward for a nights lodging. They were given a bath, bed and breakfast. If physically fit, they were given a pile of stones to break into pieces small enough to be passed through a metal grill in the wall of their room. On completion of the task the door was unlocked and the tramp allowed on his way.
