Maureen Selley, Secretary, writes: The North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple, Devon, holds some material relating to the North Devon Infirmary, but it has no list of subscribers or benefactors in its collections. The infirmary, at the end of Litchdon Street in Barnstaple, was founded in 1824 and paid for by public subscription; it closed in 1978.
The Reports list all the benefactors and subscribers, with abodes and annual payments made. The majority of names are from the north Devon area, but a small number lived elsewhere in Devon, or out of county. Depending on the amount subscribed, individuals could nominate themselves or others for treatment as in- or out-patients. Annual accounts, Secretaries’ reports, the Resident Medical Officer's Report, together with amounts collected from several churches, chapels and local Unions are also included.
The Secretary's Report for 1846 mentions a “melancholy event” and continues: “We regret to find that the affairs of the Institution are not in so satisfactory a state… In the absence of a sufficient supervision …considerable laxity appears to have occurred both in the collection of the income of the Institution and the payment of its expenditure…..Large arrears of subscriptions have been suffered to accumulate, and a serious amount in trademen's bills, with which the accounts had been debited, remain unpaid.” This veiled statement is made clearer by an account in the North Devon Journal, which stated that J. Knox, the Secretary and House Surgeon of the North Devon Infirmary, committed suicide with cyanide on the day his accounts were to be examined. By the year 1900, the number of in-patients since the foundation in 1824, was recorded as 34,309 and the number of out-patients as 105,208.
Devon Family History Society (DFHS) was particularly interested in this publication, as it contains an uninterrupted run of Annual Reports over 54 years, with many local names among the annual lists of benefactors and subscribers. However, at £1,500, the cost of this large book was beyond the Society's purchasing budget, even when the bookseller's discount reduced it to £1,200. We were delighted to be offered a grant of £1,000 by FNL, leaving us with just £200 to raise locally.
DFHS has digitised the reports at its research Centre in Exeter and will organise a project to transcribe the names and other information within the reports. The images and indexes will be made available to social, local and family history researchers.
In due course, the Reports will be given, as an unconditional gift, to the North Devon Record Office in Barnstaple, to add to the other records for the Infirmary. DFHS appreciates the generous assistance given by the Friends of the National Libraries, which enables this unique document to remain in Devon, where it will benefit a large number of researchers.
