ABSTRACT
Deep-rooted distrust of official agencies was compatible with increase in private benevolence. Despite extension of government, central and local, unofficial agencies remained important in ameliorating social problems and pioneering charitable activities. As in earlier years, there were numerous examples of individual philanthropy, communal response to emergencies, and the creation of long-term charitable foundations. At Jarrow and Walker on Tyneside, the first hospitals were built by industrialists responsible for the towns’ rapid growth - Charles Mark Palmer at Jarrow and Charles Mitchell at Walker. Successive extensions of Durham County Infirmary, founded originally at mid-century, were made possible by gifts of £10,000 by Dean Waddington of Durham in the 1860s and £12,000 by John Eden of Beamish Park in the 1880s. At Newcastle, the Diamond Jubilee of 1897 was commemorated by rebuilding the Infirmary, rechristened the Royal Victoria Infirmary, at a cost of well over £200,000. The Armstrong family and the shipowner John Hall each gave £100,000 for this purpose. The first specialist children’s hospital in the region opened in 1863 at Hanover Square, Newcastle. In 1888 the solicitor John Fleming paid for new premises erected in memory of his wife. Lord Armstrong provided a further extension in 1896. (Hume 1951, 52; Anon. 1930, 115) In Carlisle, the Liberal Anglican MP and textile manufacturer, Joseph Ferguson, devoted 20 per cent of his income to philanthropy, and there were other examples of conspicuous benevolence among the city’s industrial and commercial elite. (Anon. 1924, 25-37; Burgess 1984, 640, 681-2)
Charitable responses to local depressions or disasters remained common. The cotton famine affected textile workers in Carlisle and prompted an unofficial relief committee which subsidized wages reduced by short-time working. At its peak this committee dealt with 6,000 cases and spent more than £7,000 in the six winter months of 1862-63. During the whole financial year 1862-63 the Carlisle board of guardians spent about £11,000 and never had more than 3,255 cases. A principal, explicitly stated, function of the unofficial committee was to deal with cases which guardians found difficult because of their limited discretionary powers. Given that local poor-law
The Hartley Colliery disaster of 1862, which killed more than 200 men and boys, was one of the worst mining catastrophes. It was followed by a public subscription for dependants of the victims. Most donations, though by no means all, came from the northern region. They eventually totalled £81,838 19s. 5d. Similar funds had been established earlier, in response to the cholera epidemic of 1853 and the great fire and explosion which dev astated much of quayside Newcastle and Gateshead in 1854. Lists of dona tions show old and new forms of wealth co-operating, with peers, bishops and gentry joined by banks, collieries and factories.
