Gender and Medicine in Ireland by Preston Margaret H.;Ó hÓgartaigh Margaret;

Author:Preston, Margaret H.;Ó hÓgartaigh, Margaret;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 2021-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

The 1829 commission argued that the Lock Hospital’s role in promoting the “moral improvement” of such individuals entitled it to continued financial support from the government.31 Lock hospitals differed from all other institutions for the relief of the sick poor, a difference that arose from their “peculiar nature,” to quote an 1842 government committee of inquiry into Dublin charities.32 Venereal disease was seen as self-inflicted, the consequence of passion and vice, and its victims, other than the innocent ones depicted earlier, were deemed undeserving of charity. As a result, institutions for the relief of venereal disease found it almost impossible to attract voluntary financial support, which meant that either the state became involved, or such institutions ceased to function.33 In the early 1850s, Thomas Byrne, surgeon to the Westmoreland Lock Hospital, ascribed the institution’s lack of popular support to the fact that venereal disease was “too delicate a subject to bring before the public,” and he dismissed as “perfectly utopian” the notion that an institution whose inmates had “brought the disease on themselves by their own guilt would be supported by ladies going round begging for it.”34

The Westmoreland Lock Hospital was funded entirely by Parliament, an involvement that sat uneasily with current economic thinking. Government concern over this usage of public funds was reflected in the appointment of inquiries in 1808, 1819, 1829, 1842, 1854, and 1855 to consider whether government funding of the hospital and a number of Dublin charitable institutions should be continued, modified, or terminated. In June 1829, the Select Committee on Irish Miscellaneous Estimates suggested that such public support should be based on four criteria: (1) “the proved utility of the charity”; (2) “the improbability of its maintenance by private aid only”; (3) “the contribution of funds locally raised by subscription or taxation”; and (4) “the strictest economy in salaries and all other expenses.”35

The half-century after the Act of Union witnessed the gradual erosion of the Westmoreland Lock Hospital’s financial base, which, of course, had implications for the service provided. Table 9.1 shows the level of public funding for the institution between 1801 and 1827. After that, Parliament voted for a sum of £3,490 in 1828 and of £3,060 in the following year.36 From 1828 to 1838, the average annual parliamentary grant was £2,813. In 1838, the grant was reduced to £2,500 and remained at that amount until 1848. Thereafter, it was reduced by 10 percent per year. The projected grant for 1855 was £1,000.37

Table 9.1

Level of Public Funding for the Westmoreland Lock Hospital, 1801–1827

Period Annual Average (£)

1801–1803 5,932

1804–1806 7,111

1807–1809 9,019

1810–12 7,386

1813–15 7,813

1816–18 8,314

1819–21 5,133

1822–24 2,606

1825–27 3,412

Source: Westmoreland Lock Hospital annual reports, Royal College of Physicians archives, Dublin.

On 23 December 1837, the Treasury reminded the lord lieutenant that the Westmoreland Lock Hospital was in constant breach of one of the four criteria for public funding laid down by the 1829 Select Committee on Irish Miscellaneous Estimates and that unless private subscriptions were raised in aid of the hospital, it could not guarantee a continuation of government support.

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