Provident dispensaries : sketch of the facts connected with the establishment of the Royal Victoria Dispensary, at Northampton with a short summary of the results of the working of that institution, during a period of fourteen years and practical suggestions for the conduct of similar institutions / by John Becke.

  • Becke, John.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Provident dispensaries : sketch of the facts connected with the establishment of the Royal Victoria Dispensary, at Northampton with a short summary of the results of the working of that institution, during a period of fourteen years and practical suggestions for the conduct of similar institutions / by John Becke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ROYAL VICTORIA DISPENSARY. rpHIS Institution was founded in the year 1845, in order to commemorate the visit of Her Majesty to the town of Northampton. A sum of nearly .£1,000 was raised by donations. A building suited for the purposes of the Institution was pur¬ chased for the sum of ^£800, and conveyed to the Trustees of the Charity by deed, duly enrolled. The total expenditure incurred in the purchase of the building, alterations, and repairs, with the preliminary charge, consequent upon advertising, &c., slightly exceeded Ti,000. Considerable discussion took place at the founding of the Institution, as to whether it should be opened on that which has been termed (I believe erroneously) the purely charitable plan, or on the self-supporting system, or on some combination of those plans. Those in favor of affording gratuitous medical relief to the suffering poor, urged strongly the fact, that in a town like Northampton, there must be a large number of people who were wholly unable to pay for medical relief in the ordinary way; and who were also too poor to subscribe even the small sum which was required to constitute them subscribers of a Provident Dispensary. That this was the class which most especially needed relief. That the provident poor, and those who were able to support themselves by their own labor, were usually provided with medical aid, by means of the various Benefit Societies and Sick Clubs in the town,