Bristol Workhouse Stapleton

from my email:-

I recently obtained the death certificate of my great grandfather Henry Ford who died in 1902 at the Bristol Workhouse, Stapleton. I noted that his cause of death was certified by Robert H Norgate and ‘Googled’ his name. I came across your tree.

The reason I am writing, from Australia, is to ask if you know much about Bristol Workhouse in 1902. My great grandfather, a french polisher, appears on the 1901, with his wife Christiana and their family, living at 2 Avon Park Avonvale Road. I am curious why he died in the workhouse in 1902. I’m not sure if he’d done something wrong, or was in fact ill. Do you know by any chance what the workhouse was used for in 1920?

Thank you for your time.

Most of my writing about genealogy is in response to enquiries on usenet, rootsweb and other notices or lists. I prefer group work because our collective knowledge is greater than my own.

Robert H Norgate Bristol workhouse - Google Search

which takes me to my own RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: WATKINS LAPHAM updated 2007

Census 1901 Medical Officer of Workhouse The Lilacs Manor Road Stapleton Bristol RG13/2397 f36 p10

and the link which is one of my sources
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~peter/workhouse/Bristol/Bristol.shtml which now has a redirect to www.workhouses.org.uk - The Workhouse Web Site

Records

• Bristol Record Office, 'B' Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol BS1 6XN. Bristol workhouse records were virtually all destroyed by enemy action in 1940.

  Bibliography

• Large, David (1995) Bristol and the New Poor Law (Bristol Branch of the Historical Association)
• Summers, Marian & Bowman, Sue (1995) Of Poor Law, Patients and Professionals... A History of Bristol's Southmead Hospital

from my family tree researches:-

Father: Frank B. Norgate b: ABT 1826 in Great Ashfield, Suffolk, England
Mother: Anna Marie - b: ABT 1840 in St Neots, Huntingdon, England

Marriage 1 Mary Elizabeth (Lily) Evans b: 1876 in St Philips Bristol (my great aunt and my Bristolian grandmother's sister)

1. Josephine D. (José) Norgate b: 7 SEP 1898 in Fishponds Gloucester

who was both a cousin and a life long friend of my mother.
The workhouses evolved into a free hospitals . . . . typically my correspondant does not give the full data on her certificate . . . the cause of death will be the main clue.

So she better join Bristol_and_Somerset Bristol and Somerset County
and or the splinter list
BRISTOL_AND_DISTRICTThe Bristol_and_District mailing list
both part of RootsWeb.com - Genealogy mailing lists

and search those list archives
Searching for: +(+bristol +workhouse) gives 1,463 matches from 32,489,968 documents

Ancestry subscribers may enjoy this: Search > Census > UK Census Collection > 1901 England Census > Gloucestershire > Bristol > Stapleton > District Bristol Workhouse and do not forget to View description of enumeration district

The first pages list the resident staff which gives further evicence about the kind of inmates cared for.

1901 England Census - Ancestry.co.uk Keyword(s) search:- Bristol workhouse Stapleton gives about 1100 hits for staff and inmates

but there were at least four workhouses in and around Bristol