1 Cork City & County Archives: Through War and Rebellion: Cork 1912-1918

SP1912-18, 1914 Susanne R Day ©Cork City and County Archives 2015

2 Cork City & County Archives: Through War and Rebellion: Cork 1912-1918

Year 1914: BG69/A/140 Cork Board of Guardians (extract from minutes of 16 March 1914)

Boards of Guardians were created by the Poor Law (Ireland) Act 1838. Each board administered a a workhouse and poor relief services within a defined poor law union consisting of a group of parishes or townlands. People who had no work would either go to the workhouse or be sent there by a Relieving Officer whose job was to go around the district and ensure that nobody was starving in the area. The Board levied (charged) the landowners in their area a poor rate (tax) to feed and clothe the people in the workhouse. When there were a lot of poor people in the area, eg, times of famine, the rate was higher.

Each board was composed of guardians who came from and were elected by the owners of land. Depending on the value of the property an elector had one to three votes. In Ireland District Electoral Divisions were formed to create Poor Law Unions. We still use these today for elections but the Poor Law is long gone.

The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1899 changed the system. The members of the Rural District Councils

became the guardians for their areas and poor law elections were limited to urban areas. Property

qualifications were abolished, multiple votes were ended and women could become guardians. The term

of office of a guardian was increased to three years, with all guardians elected with no ex officio or

nominated board members. Boards could co-opt (bring in) a chairman, vice-chairman and up to two

other members.

This was the first time that women could be elected to any government body but as the electorate were

almost all male then few women even ran for election or got elected. At the time only 60% of men over

21 could vote in General Elections under the 1884 Reform Act and women were demanding equal rights

for women in the United Kingdom through the Suffragette movement.

Susanne Day helped form the Irish Women’s Franchise League in Cork and co-founded the Munster

Women’s Franchise League, with writer Edith Somerville. She was one of the first women elected to the

Cork County Borough (Cork City) Board of Guardians, in 1911. Appalled by the state of the workhouse

(now St. Finbarr’s Hospital), especially the overcrowded conditions in the children’s ward, she started a

campaign inside the Board to change this. She was obstructed at every stage by some members of the

Board who did not want to spend money on improving things. She wrote an article on ‘The Workhouse

Child’ in 1912, and later she wrote a thinly disguised satire called “The Amazing Philanthropists. Being

extracts from the letters of Lester Martin’ published in 1916. She left Ireland for France in 1916 and

worked at the war front. She wrote Round about Bar-le-Duc in 1918 about her experiences during the

battle of Verdun. She returned to Cork after her mother died and lived at Myrtle Hill House on Lover's

Walk. However by the early 1930s she had returned to France. She also wrote plays with Geraldine

Cummins, a noted spiritualist, two of which (Broken Faith and Fox and Geese) were staged at the Abbey

in Dublin. Later plays The Dark Horse and Sixes and Sevens were staged in Manchester. During the

Second World War she worked for the London Fire Service. She died in London on 26 May 1964.

Her father, Robert Day was one of the most important people in the study of Irish pre-history as he

purchased many of the artefacts that have found their way into museums across the world. Her nephew

Alec R. Day, also an antiquarian and historian, founded the Cork Camera club in 1932. A collection of his

papers is held at Cork City and County Archives. You might like to arrange a visit

3 Cork City & County Archives: Through War and Rebellion: Cork 1912-1918

The Document

Board of Guardians Reference BG/69/A/140 p.485

All Boards were subject to the overall control of the Local Government Board of Ireland (these days

it is the Department of the Environment) in Dublin Castle which was the headquarters of British Rule

in Ireland until January 1922. The document is the minutes from the Cork Borough Board of

Guardians (Cork City) discussing a letter from the LGB about the condition of the children’s ward as a

result of Susanne Day’s campaign.

Instructions:

1. Read through the document.

2. Highlight the names of people, sentences, or words you do not understand.

3. Highlight any words you cannot read.

4. Fill in the recording sheet supplied and attach it to the document.

5a. Optional: ‘The Amazing Philanthropists’ was a novel written by Susanne which describes the

same events and the build up to them. The linked extracts give further details of the conditions in

the Workhouse and Susanne’s views of the people on the board, the role of women in politics and

her attitude to the poor among other things. Read through the extracts and write Susanne’s story in

your own words saying what you think of the people involved including Susanne. Students may also

use Day’s 1912 article ‘The Workhouse Child’ , deploring the ‘Oliver Twist’-like conditions prevailing.

5b. Optional Starting with the links below, study and write about workhouse life for children

5c. Optional Starting with the links below, explore Day’s career as a writer, her activities as a

suffragette, and her work as an ambulance worker in the First World War. What can we learn about

the changing role of women in society, public life, and the cultural world of this period? Eg, Cork’s

suffragettes, women and the Abbey Theatre, Irish women and World War I

6a. Optional: The list of the Board of Guardians for Cork in 1913 (below) taken from Guy’s Directory

of 1913 gives the names and addresses of the members of the board. See if you can find them in the

manuscripts of the 1911 census. You can attempt all of them or your teacher may split them up for

you. Write a short paragraph including at least ten facts about each family. Don’t forget to look for

the same family in the 1901 census as this will give you a lot more information about the people

making decisions in Cork at that time. From the Household returns you should be able to find out a

lot about the family, (religion, age, number of children, literacy, illnesses, position in family etc.) and

from the House and Building returns you should be able to tell a lot about the kind of house they

lived in. From the Outhouse return you can even tell if they kept chickens or how they heated their

houses. Susanne Day’s 1911 return can be found here. How does she actually spell her name?

6b. Optional: Contrast these details with the information provided about the inmates of the

Workhouse in the 1911 Census recorded in Houses 1.1 and 1.2 of Knockrea townland

7. Store the completed work as directed by your teacher.

4 Cork City & County Archives: Through War and Rebellion: Cork 1912-1918

DON’T FORGET TO ZOOM IN TO HELP READ THE WORDS

Ref: BG69/A/140 minute book. Collection: BG69 Cork Board of Guardians

5 Cork City & County Archives: Through War and Rebellion: Cork 1912-1918

GUARDIANS COUNTY BOROUGH OF CORK. (Guy’s Directory 1913:

http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/places/streetandtradedirectories/1913guyscitycountyalmanacan

ddirectory/ )

Chairman—Michael McCarthy

Vice-Chairman—Richard Cronin

Deputy Vice-Chairman—Mathew Fitzpatrick

No I (Centre Ward)—John J Goggin, J P, 117 Sundays Well Road Denis Buckley, Litchfield, Ballintemple, Thomas C Butterfield, 28 South Mall, Patrick H Meade, 3 Summerhill Terrace No 2 (North Centre) — Wm J Hegarty, Lawsonville, Boreenmanna Rd, Sir D J Hegarty, J P, Beechmount, Summerhill, Michael Newman, 17 Kyle Street, Patrick Murphy, 17 Drawbridge Street No 3 (North East)— Susanne R Day, Myrtle Hill House, Hannah Mary Barry, 1 Rockspring, St Lukes James Daly, 96 Ballyhooly Road, St Lukes, Timothy Cosgrove, 140, Ballyhooly Road No 4 (North West)— Terence O'Connor, 105 Shandon Street Cornelius Mallard, 91 Watercourse Road, Patrick Murphy, J P, 49 Sundays Well Road John F O'Sullivan, 45 Popes quay, Tadg. Barry, 54 Blarney Street Denis J Sharkey, 15 Great Wm O'Brien Street No 5 (South)— Richard Cronin, 17 St Fin Barres Place Daniel Cronin, 13 Margaret Street Simon Mahony,, 1, Tower Street, Michael Desmond, 83 High Street James O'Connell, 59 Evergreen Street David Murphy, Friars Walk No 6 (South Centre)— Elizabeth Mary Murphy, 8 Adelaide Terrace, Patrick D O Brien, 2 Newenham Terrace, James O'Donovan, Rock Villas, Connaught Avenue, William Desmond, 2 Pembroke Street No 7 (West)- Thomas Slack, Maryville, Mardyke, Daniel Gamble, 48 Grattan Street John Murphy, 15 Blackrock Road , John Callanan, 23, Bachelors Quay

6 Cork City & County Archives: Through War and Rebellion: Cork 1912-1918

Further Research and Sources

CORK CITY AND COUNTY ARCHIVES CATALOGUE

This extract is from a minute book of the Cork Board of Guardians:

http://catalogue.corkarchives.ie/Details/archive/110000165

Papers of Day’s nephew Alec R Day, antiquarian, historian, and photographer:

http://catalogue.corkarchives.ie/Details/archive/110005911

Day’s co-playwright, Geraldine Cummins, from Glanmire, was a famous medium and spiritualist. Her

papers include copies of the plays she co-wrote with Susanne Day:

http://catalogue.corkarchives.ie/Details/archive/110000657

CORK CITY AND COUNTY ARCHIVES WEBSITE

Descriptive list of Cork Board of Guardians records:

http://www.corkarchives.ie/media/BG69web.pdf

ELSEWHERE AND ONLINE

Jstor.org An academic research website preserving ‘the scholarly record’ online. Accessible via Cork

City Libraries and Cork City and County Archives

Day, Susanne R, ‘The Workhouse Child’, The Irish Review (Dublin), Vol 2, No 16 (Jun., 1912), pp169-

179

http://www.jstor.org/stable/30062823

Impassioned article by Day regarding the plight of children in the workhouse system, published

within a year of her election to the Cork Board of Guardians.

Cork County Library holds a copy of Day’s ‘The Amazing Philanthropists’ (London, 1916):

http://www.corkarchives.ie/media/1914%20Day%20The%20Amazing%20Philanthropists.pdf

Corkpastandpresent.ie Cork City Libraries research website

Day’s unpublished novel ‘St Martin’s Cloak’ may be downloaded from this site, which also gives a

good short biography of Day.

http://www.corkpastandpresent.ie/culture/corkwriters/susannerouvierday/

Book Gonzalez, Alexander G (ed.), Irish Women Writers: an A-to-Z guide (Greenwood Press, 2006)

Includes detailed entries of Cummins and Day, which are present in the Google Books preview:

https://books.google.ie/books?id=quocyNYLbLcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r

&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Abbeytheatre.ie Details of productions, including ‘Broken Faith’ and ‘Fox and Geese’ http://www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/play_detail/10250;

http://www.abbeytheatre.ie/archives/production_detail/988

7 Cork City & County Archives: Through War and Rebellion: Cork 1912-1918

BBC Documentary The Horrific World of England's Workhouse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCTgS4sFyVk

One of the first acts of the new Irish state was to abolish the workhouses. In England they continued

until 1948. This BBC Documentary is 1.32 hours long but the first the first twenty minutes about

Charlie Chaplin will be sufficient.

Join me in the 1900’s Life in a Workhouse

http://www.1900s.org.uk/1900s-workhouse-life.htm

Part of a very good amateur site about life in Victorian Britain.

Archiseek workhouse

http://archiseek.com/tag/workhouse/

Maps and plans for workhouses including the one in Limerick which was typical of Irish workhouses which were far less ornate than some of their English counterparts

Workhouses.org History of Workhouses in UK and Ireland http://www.workhouses.org.uk/

Informative site on all aspects of workhouse history, with good sections on Irish houses

This Project is made possible through the support of the Heritage Council Grants Programme 2015