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Swansea Hospital
Founded as a Dispensary in 1814, and became an Infirmary in 1817. Located in St
Helens Road, Swansea as a Voluntary Hospital.
It was closed in 1968.
Cefn Coed Hospital
Founded in 1932 in Cockett, Swansea for the treatment of Mental Illness.
Swansea Union Workhouse
Founded in 1861 by the Swansea Board of Guardians. Part of the Workhouse was
used as an Infirmary, known as Tawe Lodge.
Later became renamed as Mount Pleasant Hospital. It was closed in 1995.
The following extract is taken from the South Wales Evening Post dated 21 December 1994, it was written by Jill Forwood and the copy was obtained from
the Library and Information Service of the City & County of Swansea.
Submitted by Andrew J. Pritchard
Some time during the first few years of Tawe Lodge, an anonymous inmate wrote a poem, seven verses of which sang the praises of the guardians and
staff for providing the good things at Christmas.
According to the writer, there was roast beef for dinner and currant cake
for tea, tobacco for the men, snuff for the women and apples, nuts and cakes for the children.
The poem, published in The Cambrian in December 1870, paints a completely different picture of Christmas in the workhouse to the one we tend to
imagine.
In fact, research suggests that life inside Tawe Lodge could be a great deal better than life outside.
This is the surprise suggestion of Jen Wilson, a principal member, with
teacher Ursula Masson, of Swansea Women's History Group.
Jen, who has written about life "up the Mount" in the second annual magazine of Swansea Writers and Artists' Group, has a special interest in Tawe Lodge.
She knew it well as Mount Pleasant Hospital when, from 1977to 1985, she worked there as an auxiliary geriatric nurse.
"I was always conscious of the fact that I was in a place with a
particularly rich history, " said Jen, who now runs Swansea Women's Jazz Archive.
"To many of the older people who came in, the hospital was still Tawe Lodge, the dreaded workhouse.
"The soon realised it wasn't, of course, not just being there revived al the old memories."
Tawe Lodge was Swansea's third workhouse. The first was established in the 18th Century, within the castle grounds, and was succeeded by the building
originally known as the Bathing House on Swansea Burrows.
By the mid 19th Century, Swansea was a boom town. Thousands were pouring in to seek work in the rapidly expanding industries and their accompanying
exports.
There was work, but little comfort. Many houses were overcrowded hovels with no water supply or sanitation, and cholera became a familiar epidemic.
Only 54 per cent of the population could expect to reach 15.
Fortunately, the concept of public health was growing and as Swansea
Infirmary and Workhouse had "no fever ward, no pauper lunatic ward, no
schoolroom, no chapel, no lying-in ward, no proper dormitories," a board of guardians authorised the sum of £12,000 for Swansea Union Workhouse.
Purpose-built to house 350 paupers, it opened its doors on March 3, 1863.
Roughly about the time our anonymous poet was composing Christmas thanks, records show there were three women in the lying-in ward, 28 aged and infirm
women, 25 unmarried women with babies, 25 able-bodied women, 46 aged or infirm men, 23 able-bodied men, 2 aged couples, 9 in the venereal wars and,
among others, 26 vagrants, male and female.
The workhouse, ruled by the master and mistress, was the last refuge of the destitute, with cheerless accommodation and strict regulations.
For the nurses who looked after these unfortunates, life was little better. In 1904, day nurses and probationers, who lived in worked a 12-hour day,
from 8am to 8pm.
According to the Victorian Magazine, this was for wages "an incompetent servant maid of 18 will not take".
But, says Jen, there were compensations. Inmates had clean water from
streams running down Townhill, good food grown from the grounds and they were given work, medical care and uniforms.
Before Mount Pleasant Hospital closed, Jen managed to talk to someone who had worked in Tawe Lodge.
Betty, the orderly, told her :
"There were old people and children here then ... and some neglected
children. They could remain until five ears old, then they were sent to the Cottage Homes.
"Single mums would come in with their babies. Some brought their babies in drawers and they didn't have cots. Their babies were left here while the
young girls would go out to work.
"But life for the inmates was good. They were kept clean and well fed.
They visited the hospital chapel every Sunday in pinafores and shawls. They could have sweets and tobacco."
Tawe Lodge continued its work until 1948 when, under the National Health Service, it became Mount Pleasant Hospital, incorporating maternity and
geriatric units for nearly 370 patients.
In the heady days of the new welfare state, it was assumed the need for workhouses had gone forever. Nobody foresaw that some of the babies born at
Mount Pleasant might themselves end up homeless and in need of shelter one day.
Link to Swansea Union Workhouse site
http://www.swanseahistoryweb.com/
If you have any information that you would like to submit to this site please
contact admin@rossbret.co.uk
Page updated August 06, 2007
by Rossbret
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Swansea