Annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the insane. 1884.

  • Royal Edinburgh Asylum.
Date:
[1885]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum for the insane. 1884. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/80 (page 5)
    connection with the north-west wing, and on improvements in the workmens’ houses at Tipperlinn, the sum of.<£2,362 8 6 And in the purchase and erection of an Iron Church for the use of the patients. 751 1 0 Making a total Extraordinary Expenditure of.£3,113 9 6 which has been wholly defrayed out of the surplus Ordinary Revenue. The Suburban Railway Company having scheduled for station purposes the ground at the west end of Maxwell Street acquired by the Corporation from the Scottish Heritages Company in 1880, part of which lies beyond the Company’s limit of deviation, the Managers, after endeavouring, without success, to induce the Railway Company to be content with a portion only of the ground in question, have agreed to sell the whole of it to the Company at the price at which it was acquired from the Heritages Company, reserving the claims of the Corporation for injury to the amenity and privacy of the East House. These claims are now the sub¬ ject of a submission to the arbiters appointed by the Suburban Railway Company’s Act of Parliament. The want of a suitable place of worship in connection with the Asylum having long been felt, on account both of the patients and the officials, the Rev. Mr Downie, the Chaplain, last spring called the attention of the Managers to the iron church, then for sale, at North Merchiston, seated for a congregation of 550, and in every way fitted as a place of worship for the Asylum. Thereupon the Managers, after due consideration, and a report by a qualified firm as to its value, acquired the structure, and had it removed to the Asylum grounds, where it has since been erected. The cost of the materials and erection amounted to £751 Is., and the Managers have every reason to be satisfied with their acquisition. The patients take more interest in the Sunday services than formerly, and altogether the church may be considered as a most valuable addition to the equipment of the Asylum. Early in the spring of the past year Dr Clouston submitted to the Board a scheme of improvements which he proposed for the north-west wing of the West House, being the only portion of the