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Died in the St. Pancras Workhouse? or Infirmary?

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  • Died in the St. Pancras Workhouse? or Infirmary?

    Hi all,

    Today I received the death certificate for Mary Harrington, one of my Irish great-grandmothers. (Yipeee!!!) I was lucky that my grandmother gave enough details to confirm her mother's identity. According to the cert, the death took place at the St. Pancras workhouse on October 30, 1903. I know that there was an Infirmary attached to the workhouse - my question is, if she had died in the Infirmary, would that normally be shown as the place of death? Or does the fact that it is omitted imply that she was a workhouse inmate and died in a dormitory? (Unfortunately, there's no street address recorded, which might have helped.)

    I expect that the records at the LMA will show where she died, and I will probably be asking for a lookup there shortly, but I was just curious to see if anyone knows what the normal practice was. According to the death cert, she had probably suffered from morbus cordis (heart disease) "for years" and from dropsy and bronchitis for "some months", so even if she had been an inmate, I would have thought (hoped) that she would have been transferred to the Infirmary before she died.

    I hope this is clear - I'm going to bed know and have to run some errands tomorrow, so I won't be around to answer questions (if any) for a while.

    Thanks -

    Tim
    "If we're lucky, one day our names and dates will appear in our descendants' family trees."

  • #2
    Tim

    I have several workhouse death certs and none of them say infirmary. I would imagine that your ancestor died in the infirmary, but whether she had been previously living in the workhouse or not is something that only the workhouse admissions register could answer.

    Sometimes the death cert doesn't state the workhouse, just gives the address.

    My great-grandmother Ruth, whose grave I visited a few weeks ago, died 1908 of "morbus cordis". I don't know if that is a term in current usage. I'd never heard of it and had to look it up!
    ~ with love from Little Nell~
    Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Little Nell View Post
      I have several workhouse death certs and none of them say infirmary. I would imagine that your ancestor died in the infirmary, but whether she had been previously living in the workhouse or not is something that only the workhouse admissions register could answer.
      Thanks Nell, that's exactly what I wanted to know.

      Tim
      "If we're lucky, one day our names and dates will appear in our descendants' family trees."

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