Holy Jesus Hospital - Nineteenth Century

Nineteenth Century

While the modern site is heavily enclosed by modern constructions, particularly Swan House roundabout, Mackenzie, in 1827, portrays a much more open space:

A soup kitchen was built in 1880, replacing the police station which adjoined the hospital on the west side, by public subscription and dispensed soup to the ‘deserving poor’ until 1891. The soup was not free: it cost half a pence per pint. People who had donated each had a number of tickets which they could give to those people who they believed qualified for the ration. The deserving poor in Victorian times were those unable to work during the winter months. Those individuals classed as undeserving were those whose poverty was deemed to be caused by indolence and alcoholism. A recent article has suggested that the soup provided by the kitchen was highly nutritious. The kitchen was open from December to March, seven days a week, weather permitting. Advertisements were placed in local newspapers such as the Daily Chronicle and The Journal and Courant to solicit donations for the kitchen. The donations were used to pay the kitchen staff and buy the provisions for the soup. The names of prominent contributors were also listed in those newspapers and annual receipts and expenditures were also published in the press. The kitchen was run by a committee of prominent townsmen, including Thomas Pumphrey, Henry E Armstrong, James Joicey and the banker Thomas Hodgkin.

Lynn Redhead, customer services administrator at the Holy Jesus Hospital, has described what the kitchen would have looked like in the following way:

"People wanting soup came in through an 18-inch wide brick-lined corridor one at a time to be served from troughs. Nine copper boilers were on the first floor of the building with storage below where raw materials were weighed to be hoisted up. They were making 100 gallons of soup at a time, that’s 800 people all queuing at the back of the building."

In 1881, the committee from the Discharged Prisoner’s Aid Society asked to use the building when it was not in use for discharged female convicts from the prison at Carliol Square (1828–1925) to do laundry work and the Society continued to use it for this purpose until the turn of the century. Between 1882 and 1883 City Road was built over the front lawn of the Hospital.

The soup kitchen closed in 1891. The building was leased to pork butcher F.G Thompson, who made alterations to the building presumably to separate his business from the laundry and ex-convicts. Urwins Chemical Factory operated on the site from 1913, producing industrial and domestic chemicals and pharmaceuticals as well as filing first aid boxes until 1961 when it moved to Stepney bank in Ouseburn. In 1937, the Council decided that the hospital was no longer fit to house people because the area aroung the almshouse was very unhealthy. Therefore a new hospital was built at Spital Tongues. Some of the building's original fixtures were moved to the new site at this time.