Case of Edward Murphy, blind orphan at Southampton Workhouse
On 18 January 1879, C. Crowther Smith, Clerk at the St Mary Street Workhouse in Southampton, wrote to the India Office regarding a blind orphan youth named Edward Murphy.
Letter about Edward Murphy from C. Crowther Smith at the Southampton Workhouse 8 January 1879, IOR/L/PJ/2/216, File 2542
Aged 19, Murphy had been sent to the Workhouse by the Superintendent of Police as he was destitute. It appeared that he had been deported from India by the Madras Government and there was no evidence of his legal settlement in the UK. Smith wished to know from the India Office of any course which could be adopted to prevent Murphy remaining a permanent charge to the parochial rates at Southampton. The Workhouse Board thought it unfair that the burden of maintaining such cases should be thrown on the ratepayers of the port at which the vessel containing such destitute persons should happen to arrive.
Deportation request by the Madras Government Workhouse IOR/L/PJ/2/225, File 180
The India Office made enquiries. On 2 April 1878, Major Balmer, President of the Committee for the Management of the Government Workhouse at Madras, had written to the Madras Government requesting approval for the deportation of seven men under the provision of the Indian Vagrancy Act. A short summary for each man was given, and Edward Murphy’s entry reads: ‘Register No.713, Edward Murphy, of Ireland, age 19, came out some 17 or 18 years ago with his mother to Rangoon; educated there til 17; was then employed on the Prome Railway, where he lost his eyesight. The Doctor has recommended his deportation to England. Admitted 8th March 1878’.
India Office memorandum about Edward Murphy - IOR/L/PJ/2/225, File 180
A memorandum records that Murphy’s parents were Irish, and his father Michael was a Drummer in the 50th Regiment of Native Infantry. His father died in England, and his mother took Murphy to Rangoon to join an uncle who was a non-commissioned officer in the Telegraph Department. His mother died shortly after arriving and his uncle placed him in a school there. The uncle died in 1868, but the Orphan Society in Rangoon supported Murphy enabling him to complete his education. At 17, he joined the Prome Railway as a Fireman, but after a year left with sore eyes and was admitted to the Rangoon Hospital, and later transferred to the Madras Eye Infirmary. He could distinguish light from darkness but little else. He had no one to support him and didn’t know what county or parish he was from. Murphy was deported to England on the P&O steamer Cathay, leaving Madras on 2 December 1878.
The India Office was scornful of the complaints from the Southampton Workhouse, and in an internal memo, William Macpherson, Secretary to the Judicial & Public Department, noted ‘…there would scarcely seem to be any ground for complaint, as that Parish is best able to maintain the burden by reason of the great advantage the locality must derive from the fleet of the P&O Company sailing to and from that Port, and from the rates they must receive in respect of the Docks there’. On 15 February 1879, the India Office wrote to the Workhouse stating that they could not advise on Murphy’s case, and that there were no funds at the disposal of the Secretary of State which could be applied in his case.
It appears likely that the Edward Murphy who was admitted, blind, to East London's Homerton Workhouse in April 1879 is the same man. Murphy spent the next twelve years moving in and out of the workhouse, infirmary, and ophthalmic hospital. We lose track of him after the 1891 census when he is a workhouse inmate.
John O’Brien
India Office Records
Further Reading:
Letter from the Clerk at the Workhouse, St Mary Street, Southampton, regarding Edward Murphy, 18 January 1879, Judicial Home Correspondence, shelfmark IOR/L/PJ/2/216, File 2542.
Case of Edward Murphy, a vagrant sent from India to Southampton, 1878-1879, shelfmark: IOR/L/PJ/2/225, File 1807.
History of the Southampton Workhouse.
The registers of the Southampton Workhouse are held at Southampton Archives Office.
The National Archives - UK census returns for Homerton Workhouse.
London Metropolitan Archives - Poor Law Records.