George Wilkinson
George Wilkinson (1814 – 1890) was from Oxfordshire in England. He was 24 years old when he was offered the commission to design and supervise the building of all the Irish workhouses. He was approached on the basis of his experience as he had been the architect of 350 workhouse buildings in Britain. He was to be paid a salary of £500 per annum with a full-time assistant and a clerk. Wilkinson had been instructed that the buildings were to be “inexpensively built and without ornamentation” although he did try to include “pleasing and picturesque” features such as the “Tudor style hood-mouldings, window mullions and tall chimneys”. The workhouses were to be formidable, institutionalised and forbidding bleak buildings with a rather prison-like quality about them.
The events of Wilkinson’s arrival to Ireland in January 1839 has been documented. It had been decided to build one hundred and thirty workhouses in each of the Unions; nineteen in Connaught, thirty six in Leinster, thirty two in Munster and forty three in Ulster. His enthusiasm for his work is evident as he submitted his designs and measurements for approval in February 1839. He had designed three types of buildings – small, medium and large, accommodating between 200 and 2,000 people – depending on which the Board of Guardians determined appropriate for their allocated sites. The buildings themselves were constructed of the cheapest materials and substandard fittings in order to save the Board of Guardians as much costs as possible. In later workhouse buildings, the walls were constructed of limestone and were not plastered on the interior but were heavily lime washed as lime has an antiseptic quality and was used to prevent the spread of disease. This brightened the interior of the building and also created a job for the inmates to perform as it was frequently applied for this purpose.
The events of Wilkinson’s arrival to Ireland in January 1839 has been documented. It had been decided to build one hundred and thirty workhouses in each of the Unions; nineteen in Connaught, thirty six in Leinster, thirty two in Munster and forty three in Ulster. His enthusiasm for his work is evident as he submitted his designs and measurements for approval in February 1839. He had designed three types of buildings – small, medium and large, accommodating between 200 and 2,000 people – depending on which the Board of Guardians determined appropriate for their allocated sites. The buildings themselves were constructed of the cheapest materials and substandard fittings in order to save the Board of Guardians as much costs as possible. In later workhouse buildings, the walls were constructed of limestone and were not plastered on the interior but were heavily lime washed as lime has an antiseptic quality and was used to prevent the spread of disease. This brightened the interior of the building and also created a job for the inmates to perform as it was frequently applied for this purpose.