Joy Woodall
19 Jan 2015
The 1601 Poor Law stipulated that the poor had to be helped by the payment of money and/or goods, the costs being raised by a compulsory levy on all parishioners based on their land holdings. Everyone capable of working should do so, and the idea of a special building, or workhouse, where the poor could live and work together under proper supervision, grew up: the first was in Bristol in 1696. In Solihull a public meeting in April 1740 decided that a Parish Workhouse was needed. Thomas Sandal erected a two storey building on the north side of the Warwick Road, with a long room, kitchens, an infirmary, and 20 beds on the first floor. It opened in 1742. The building still exists, now with attics and is used as offices. Solihull was a large rural parish in 1801 with 11,500 acres but only 2,500 people. It had a free school and a doctor (John Short), but the market had ceased to exist. By 1831 the population had risen by 400, and across the UK there were 10 million poor people – caused by inflation and the numbers of discharged soldiers.
The 1834 Poor Law replaced individual parish workhouses by Union Workhouses for a group of parishes. They were run by an elected Board of Guardians, controlled by Commissioners in London, although local ratepayers still provided the funds. The Guardians employed staff, eg a Master of the Workhouse, Medical Officer, and others. The Solihull Union included 11 parishes: Solihull, Knowle, Temple Balsall, Baddesley Clinton, Packwood, Lapworth, Nuthurst, Barston, Elmdon, Tamworth and Yardley. The Guardians bought two acres of land and built a new Union workhouse, entered from Union Road. The building, planned like a prison, opened in September 1838 and housed 125 paupers. No money was given out and conditions inside were deliberately harsh. Males were separated from females (even if married) and each had seven categories (based on age) housed in different wings with individual yards. No communication between the categories was allowed. Inmates got up at 5.45am and went to bed at 8pm. Three meals were provided daily but the food, cooked by the female inmates, was only at subsistence level. The men worked in the gardens and broke stone. Children were taught in the Workhouse or at a local school. The curate came frequently to give religious instruction.
Because of the number of aged and sick inmates, the Infirmary wards were inadequate, so they were enlarged with 16 wooden beds. But there were no facilities to isolate fevers until 1846 when a garden shed was converted for this purpose. Dr Lowe, the Medical Officer, was supposed to make regular visits besides inspecting each new inmate, but rarely did so. He eventually resigned in 1869 after 31 years. In his absence the Workhouse nurse was in charge, assisted only by the female inmates. Tramps, due under the Poor Law to be given food and shelter for a night, were a problem as the Guardians had made no provision for them originally. In 1867 there were 67 per week and by 1905 the average had risen to 265. They loitered beside The Golden Lion on the corner of Warwick and Union Road until admitted. They were housed in the fever shed, which had to be enlarged several times.
Despite other extensions the Workhouse was always overcrowded. The Guardians gave priority to economy. Eventually four acres of land between the Workhouse and Lode Lane were purchased and a new two storey Infirmary was built by Braggs to accommodate 64 patients. It cost £12,000 and opened in 1898. A new tramps’ block to match the Infirmary was also built within the original boundary, as was a new laundry, but plans for a new kitchen and a chapel were shelved. Land was bought in 1902 at Marston Green for a small- pox hospital which opened in 1904 for 16 patients. An isolation hospital at Catherine-de-Barnes opened in 1910, which helped with the diphtheria/scarlet fever epidemic that year. It became acknowledged that children should no longer live in the Workhouse: The Woodlands at Hampton-in-Arden was rented from 1904 to house 12 girls and a foster mother; two years later a similar house for 12 boys was acquired. ‘Idiot’ children were sent to Middlefield in Knowle. A telephone was installed in 1902, and a new Master’s House was built in 1907.
In 1911 compulsory National Insurance was introduced for workers which provided free medical treatment to the contributors, but not to their families. In 1912 there were 200 in the Union Workhouse; by 1921 322. Apart from the latter’s Infirmary, Solihull had no hospital but funds for one started to be raised in the late 1920s. In 1926 the Board of Guardians was abolished and the Workhouse passed to the Warwickshire County Council which, a decade later bought three houses on Lode Lane for expansion: Wayside became a nurses’ home, Northwood was used for maternity and Arden for Workhouse purposes. Solihull Urban District Council was created in 1932 with boundaries larger than the original parish, and pressure for a hospital mounted – especially with the approach of war. The Workhouse Infirmary was designated an emergency hospital in 1939. It had little equipment, eg few surgical instruments (so Dr Watson ordered these from the suppliers, the bill for £750 going direct to the Warwickshire C.C. which accused him of gross extravagance); and no x-Ray machine – patients being taken to Dr Quinet’s house in the Warwick Road.
When the National Health Service started in 1948, Solihull Hospital – together with seven others – was controlled by the Birmingham Hospital Management Committee. Dr Harold Watson, who had come from Birmingham in 1941, was the Hospital Superintendent; he gave the tramps 6d each telling them never to return. Dr Quinet was the consultant surgeon, with eight senior and six resident junior doctors. Miss Windridge, the Matron, had 65 full time and 77 part time nurses. The hospital controlled a number of homes previously used by other organisations, including Brook House in Lode Lane, a maternity unit used by local GPs; Catherine-de-Barnes hospital also used for maternity; and Eastcote Grange at Barston was a convalescent home. New facilities were added eg operating theatres, a pathology laboratory and a dispensary.
Many people came to the Hospital as outpatients – the number had grown to 72,000 in 1953. Facilities were poor but over the years improvements were made, eg in 1959 a new reception area with 40 seats and a tea bar was built for £30,000. The Friends of Solihull Hospital was founded in 1953 and over the years has provided volunteers to help patients and raised funds. A staff canteen in Union Road was financed, and in 1960 £3,000 was given for a bedlift to the upper floors (previously those who could not manage the stairs had to be carried).
In 1966 smallpox was widespread across the Midlands, so mothers and babies were moved from Catherine-de-Barnes which reverted to being a fever hospital. In 1972 the new maternity block, five storeys high came into use. The Duchess of Gloucester was due to open it but, due to her eldest son’s death in an air accident, the ceremony was postponed by three months by which time 1,500 babies had been born in the unit. But the Hospital faced financial problems, Eastcote Grange was closed, and there were disputes within the NHS on spending priorities. Nevertheless a District General Hospital was promised at a cost of £10m with work starting in 1987. The forecast was later revised to £27m, starting in 1991, and many campaigns successfully raised funds to reduce the burden on the NHS, The new Hospital finally opened in 1994. Sadly control passed to Heartlands Hospital in 1996.