Catalogue

Durham Hospitals

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• Durham Hospitals
  • Durham County Hospital (Ref: H/Du )
  • Managing committee and sub-committees, minutes and reports (Ref: H/Du 1-33, 50-85)
  • Constitution (Ref: H/Du 34)
  • Misellaneous (Ref: H/Du 35, 49, 140)
  • Photographs (Ref: H/Du 36-37)
  • Hospital Management Committee Expenditure analysis (Ref: H/Du 126-130)

Catalogue Description

Notes compiled by a volunteer relating to Durham Infirmary:-
According to Fordyce (I: 334-335), 'Thomas Wilkinson of Coxhoe' presented the trustees of the Infirmary for the Sick and Lame Poor of the County of Durham, later known as Durham County Hospital, with a plot of land in Allergate which opened for the reception of patients in 1793.
This institution had its origins in a dispensary which opened in Sadler Street in 1785. Of late, Fordyce continues, writing in 1855, "this building was found too limited to afford accommodation and relief to the pressing and increasing demand of the city and district", and a site in New North Road was selected for the erection of a new building, "the ground for which was purchased of Mr. Wilkinson".
This 'Mr. Wilkinson' was Anthony Wilkinson whose name Fordyce includes among those of the officers of the infirmary trust in 1851. The first reference in the Durham County Hospital Managing Committee minute book for the period, 1843-1854 (H/Du/3), to the purchase of ground occurs in conjunction with its meeting of 7th February 1845 when, "A letter from Mr. Hays, Clerk to the Guardians of the Durham Union Poor House, on the subject of enclosing the piece of ground lately purchased of them by the Governors of the Dm. Infirmary having been read, It was resolved, That Mr. Elliot [a member of the committee] confer with Mr. Bonomi, and advise with him as to the best mode of effecting the same."
This letter would seem to be part of an exchange of correspondence between John Hays and Ignatius Bonomi, one from the latter to the former in 1840 which is included in the collection.
On 3rd April 1846, according to the minutes, "It was agreed that a Conveyance of the Property lately purchased of the Poor Law Union, be immediately prepared & executed by Messrs. Ward & Storry." This property was situated to the north of the workhouse, and appears to be adjacent to that which was occupied at the time by the infirmary. It was not that upon which a new infirmary was eventually built. The infirmary trustees' minutes reveal, and Fordyce confirms, that this was situated almost entirely on land, West Sheriffs Meadow, sold to them, at less than market price, for £1000 by Anthony Wilkinson. An additional sliver of land adjacent to West Sheriffs Meadow upon which some of the infirmary grounds and an access road were situated was, according to the Durham, Framwellgate tithe plan and apportionment of 1838-39 (EP/DuSM 92; D/Ph 254/1), owned by Rev. (Thomas Richard) Shipperdson, vicar of Woodhorn, Northumberland, and minutes of 6th February 1851 reveal that the trustees had thanked him for a present which in all probability was this land.
Ignatius Bonomi (1787-1870) was an architect and Durham County Bridge Surveyor. In conversation, June (J. H.) Crosby, author of Ignatius Bonomi of Durham, Architect (Durham: City of Durham Trust, 1987), said she believed that Bonomi did not design the new Durham Infirmary. Nikolaus Pevsner (revised by Elizabeth Williamson), The Buildings of England: County Durham (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983), 229, does not identify its architect, and describes the structure as "A big, very grey stone hospital of c. 1857 onwards. Jacobethan with lots of shaped gables. Many additions."
The infirmary trustees' minutes do not state specifically who designed the new building. However, Fordyce states, in reference to the new infirmary, "The erections are from designs supplied by Mr. Thompson, architect, London, now of Newcastle." Pevsner identifies the architects Matthew Thompson (297, 424) and W. Thompson (107, 334) as being active in the area at the time. Matthew Thompson (c. 1822-1878), who had an office at 5 Eldon Square, Newcastle upon Tyne, was the more prominent of the two.
Infirmary trustees' minutes refer to Messrs. Wilson and Gibson, and Fordyce, identifying them as masons and citing infirmary accounts, reveals that they received £4,863 2s. 6d. for contract and extra work, the largest single payment in a total cost for the project, including purchase of land, of nearly £7,500. Sale of the old infirmary, he divulges, recouped £525.
See D/X 2 and D/X 1117

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