Clapham

Clapham

Clapham Workhouse and Poor Law Union

Records

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Editorial - Neglect of the Sick Poor.

5 pages - Including The case of Charles Morris of Clapham.
Report from The Times of Monday 27th November 1837.
It is an inquest held on Saturday the 25th upon the body of Charles Morris aged 32, who died in the Clapham Union Workhouse, on Tues the 21st November.

On Wednesday the 15th November, he applied to Mr Powis, the surgeon of the Union, from whom he obtained some medicine, and a certificate to be shown to Mr Burgess, the relieving officer.
On Thursday the 16th Mr Powis saw the patient in the workhouse, where he was not admitted, but working at a hand-mill during the day.
On Friday the 17th, the patient was reported, by the superintendent of the mill, as too ill to work, but was not seen by his surgeon, and was turned into the streets at night.
Saturday the 18th, - Patient again not seen by his surgeon, and still not admitted into the workhouse.
Sunday the 19th - ditto - ditto.
Monday the 20th, not seen by the surgeon, at half-past ten at
night he obtained an order of admission into the workhouse.
Tuesday the 21st, is found in the workhouse by his surgeon, in a state of collapse, and dies shortly afterwards.

This journal of the case will enable our readers to understand
more clearly the evidence of the witnesses on the inquest, as far as it is intelligible.

The 1st witness called gave an account of the appearances on dissection; and though we must confess that his evidence, as reported is quite unsatisfactory, we are ready to attribute this to the report having been furnished by an unprofessional person. We have no doubt however, that so good an anatomist as Mr Solly will think it due both to the profession and the public, to furnish an account of what he really did find in the body of Charles Morris instead of the following vagueness.
" Mr Samuel Solly, surgeon and lecturer at St Thomas's Hospital deposed, that he was applied to by the paarochial authorities of Clapham, to perform a post-mortem examination of the deceased on the Friday; when he found the internal appearances generally healthy, but the cavities of the chest were charged with blood. The appearances were not the result of long-standing disease. The body was not in an emaciated state."
At the end of the inquest he was asked whether, from the evidence he had heard, in conjunction with the post-mortem appearances, he could account for the cause of death. To which he made to answer - that the complaint of the deceased appeared to be influenza and that death was caused from suffocation, by the sudden departure
of the fluid into the windpipe. Many similar cases have occurred during the last six months.
This answer still leaves the post-mortem appearances wrapped up in mystery; but by telling us what the disease of Charles Morris probably was, throws considerable light upon the evidence of the others.

The next witness called was Mr Henry Powis, surgeon and medical officer to the Clapham and Battersea Union. He stated that the deceased called upon him on the 15th November and said that he had a bad cold, which he had caught from sleeping in the open air. Mr Powis now gave him a certificate to the effect (as appears from the statement of Mr Burgess, the relieving officer) that he was ill, but not seriously. Now, the question which Mr Powis is bound
to answer is - what were the symptoms under which this unfortunate man was labouring when he applied to him, after sleeping in the open air in November. What was the state of his pulse, respiration etc? In fact was he, or was he not, clearly suffering from "influenza" and in a stste in which, had he been a comfortable Battersea shopkeeper he would have been immediately sent to bed, and visited daily by his medical attendant ?
The next day the 16h Mr Powis found him in the workhouse, and still thought him not seriously ill, though in addition to his former complaints he now observed that his patient had a large boil upon the inside of his left thigh which was painful. It appears, that in this agreeable asylum, this test-house for the sick and destitute, they have a hand-mill to grind flour; and strange - most passing strange to say, the said Powis did not think Morris unfit to work at this machine ! We certainly had always thought that in every inflammation repose was the first and second and third things requisite for recovery; and that, in so depressing a disease as influenza, severe exertion must be peculiarly dangerous.
The witness did not see his patient again for 5 days, that is to say until the following Tuesday the 21st, when, on passing the workhouse in his gig, he was called in by the porter, who told him that Morris was very ill. Having just then an urgent appointment, he was unable to stop, but saw the deceased in about 2 hours, when he was in a state of collapse. Shortly afterwards he expired. In answer to a question from a juroe, Mr Powis is made to say, "Death might possibly have been the effect of exposure to the night air" - Possibly indeed " We should be glad to know how many persons could stand sleeping in the open air in November, with the thermometer considerably below the freezing point, as it has frequently been during the last month. We must again repeat that a professional report of the evidence given at this inquest is imperiously required; for Mr Powis's evidence, as we find it reported, is not a whit more satisfactory though somewhat more intelligible than Mr Solly's.

From the patients account of himself it was clear that he had been exposed to circumstances fitted to ruin the toughest constitution. It does not appear that Mr Powis took him to be a malingerer; there was the boil, at any rate, plain enough; the symptoms of influenza too, are not obscure; and yet the unhappy patient was set to work at the mill by day, and turned out of the house at night!.

Mr Burgees - the relieving officer was the next witness.
He stated that the deceased applied to him on the 15th and asked to be admitted into the workhouse, saying that he had a bad cold in his limbs. The witness gave Morris a medical order, and desired him to bring back a medical certificate; he did so, and it was to the effect that he was suffering from a bad cold, but not seriously. He asked the deceased if he thought he could work ? who replied that he thought he could not. Witness referred to the certificate which stated that he was not seriously ill, when he gave him a loaf and directed him to attend the Board the ensuing day. He said that he had been sleeping at Whitechapel the last few days.
The witnesses phrase of - sleeping at Whitechapel - is a good instance of euphemism, as this was in fact bivouacing at Whitechapel with the thermometer ranging from 21 F to 40 F. Mr Burgess proceeds to state that the deceased attended the Board as directed on the 16th, but it appears that this was only a constructive attending, as the Board did not see him, and refused his application on inspecting his certificate. On hearing this decision, Morris asked for a day's work, and was put to the mill. On leaving, he said - Where am I to sleep at night ? I have no lodging. Will you oblige me by advancing me sixpence? We do not know what the triumvirate at Somerset House would say to such reckless generosity on the part of a relieving officer; but Morris actually obtained this handsome loan. About half-past twelve the next day, Friday 17th, Read, the superintendent of the mill, reported that the man was too unwell to work, and had a carbuncle on his thigh. On hearing Read's account, the witness advised that Morris should be employed at lighter work, and that if he grew worse he should be sent to the surgeon.
On Saturday the 18th the witness was in town on duty all day.
On Monday night the 20th at half-past ten, he called upon the
witness. He said that he had been in bed since Saturday, and was spitting blood. He had an order of admission to the workhouse. The witness in answer to some questions put by Mr Field, the clerk to the Board of Guardians, now says :-
"They had no room in the workhouse for the deceased; they are about to build a larger workhouse. The deceased might have gone to the overseer, or in a case of emegrency the master of this workhouse can admit a person"
These answers, squeezed out by Mr Field, are to us quite
incomprehensible; for it appeared before that originally the
deceased was refused admission on account of the Board having rejected his application, and not for want of room; and on Monday night, when he had an order, he was admitted.

Thomas Read, the superintendent of the mill, deposed that on Friday, the 17th he made the remark that the deceased was too ill to work. On that day he had a loaf of bread and 8d for his day's work. About ten o'clock on Saturday, witness's attention was called to him. He scarcely worked a quarter of an hour. Unless therefore, the reporter has made some strange mistake, it would seem that after the patient had utterly broken down in the vain attempt to work on Friday, the experiment was renewed on Saturday. The deceased, adds Read, came to work about seven o'clock on Saturday morning - On this the Coroner observed, "that when the
man was so bad, the surgeon ought to have been applied to"
We next have a pauper, who depones to the deceased tottering as he came along the room where the mills were; and the Master of the Workhouse, who now knows that in an urgent case he can admit a person without an order.

The verdict was - The deceased died from influenza; and the jury cannot separate without recommending, that in all cases of a similar nature prompt measures should be adopted.
Our readers will agree with us, that a more deplorable case, or one less creditable to the parties concerned, has very rarely come to light. Callous, indeed, must be the heart that can weigh the savings produced by the new system against such a catastrophe as this, and exult in the balance of profit !
Flimsy, indeed, must be the head which fails to perceive that these melancholy incidents (now alas so common) are the plain and inevitable results of the instructions issued by the Commissioners, and of the bill on which those instructions are founded. You may know the tree by its fruits, and trace the genuine character of the new edicts in the horrible waste of life to which they have led.
Source:
The London Medical Gazette 1837-8 Vol 21 1053 pp
p 385 2nd December 1837
Submitted by Alan Longbottom

Page updated Monday August 06, 2007