Coleraine Workhouse

[kiwi jeanie]

Hello - is there any way to view the minute books for Coleraine Workhouse online?
Many thanks if anyone can help me - I have no chance of going to PRONI sadly - I'm based in New Zealand.
 

[Elwyn Soutter]

The Guardians minute books are not on-line anywhere, so far as I am aware. They are a huge collection and those for what is now Northern Ireland are in PRONI. There were weekly meetings for nearly 100 years. They remain closed for the past 100 years, though you can get information from the closed ones via a Freedom of Information request if you are a close relative.

The Board of Guardians minutes are mostly business transactions. Approval of expenditure, eg the purchase of food, clothing and equipment, reports on the numbers of inmates both in the main part and the hospital, remedial work for the buildings, discussions about vaccinations, and any incidents. So folk running away, or coming back from a day out drunk and so on, get a mention but they don’t contain lists of the inmates. For that you need the admission records. If I recall correctly Coleraine workhouse doesn’t have any surviving admission records earlier than around 1906.

https://www.workhouses.org.uk/Coleraine/

[kiwi jeanie]

Thankyou