Cork City Council City Hall and Working Class Dwellings Committee
TitleCork City Council City Hall and Working Class Dwellings Committee
ReferenceCP/CO/CH/M
Date
1909-1929
Production date 1909 - 1929
Scope and ContentThe City Hall and Working Class Dewellings Committee first met as a sub-committee of the Law and Finance Committee in February 1907. The matter of dwellings for the labouring classes was considered by the General Committee from about 1873 on, while a Corporate Offices committee had been active since 1868. (See Law and Finance Committee minutes, CP/C/CO/M/LF, and General Committee minutes, CP/C/CO/M/GC). It first met as a distinct committee on 24 February 1909, under an Order in Council of 18 December 1908: ‘That a separate committee be appointed to discharge the business now devolving upon the sub-committee of Law and Finance Committee re City Hall and Working Class Dwellings. so as to relieve the pressure on the Law and Finance Committee’.
The present series of minutes begins with this first meeting and continues until October 1929. Meetings were held fortnightly and were generally attended by the chairman and councillors, with the city treasurer, engineer, and secretary usually attending, and caretakers sometimes present.
The committee had responsibility for all aspects of the maintenance and provision of working class dwellings, including overseeing construction and completion, repayment of construction loans, allocating housing, transfers, collection of rents, pursuing defaulters, repairs, complaints, and matters arising. It also had responsibility for the upkeep and use of City Hall, hearing applications for use of the Hall, maintaining fabric and fittings, and managing the Hall and its offices.
The minutes note committee accounts, treasurer’s returns of rents and arrears, caretakers’ reports of defaulters, and proposals for tenancies in the various Corporation housing blocks Also noted are applications for use of City Hall, usually by charitable, social, musical, and sporting groups and other organisations. Caretakers of working class dwellings collected rents, supervised the buildings and tenants, and made reports to the Committee. A visiting sub-committee periodically inspected the buildings.
One of this series’ main points of interest is that it names prospective tenants approved or rejected for Corporation housing. A note from 1914 inserted in the first volume present records that there were then 565 homes in 8 schemes, built between 1886 and 1905: Madden’s (1886); Ryan’s (1888); Horgan’s (1891); Roche’s (1892); Corporation (1896); Sutton’s (1905); Kelleher’s (1905); Barrett’s (1905). MacCurtain’s Buildings, French’s Villas, and McSwiney Villas were completed in 1924, with schemes on Evergreen Road and Capwell Road completed later in the 1920s. The minutes document the running and development of social housing in the city in this period. Furthermore, they shed light on the history of the old City Hall, although curiously no direct reference is made to the burning of this Hall on 11-12 December 1920, with hardly any reference to City Hall in the minutes after this date. A new City Hall opened on the same site in 1936.
From November 1924 to March 1929, while the Corporation was dissolved, meetings were attended by the City Commissioner (later City Manager), with other officers sometimes attending. City Manager Monahan continued to attend meetings, without Councillors present, up to 14 November 1929, when the present series ends.
The present series of minutes begins with this first meeting and continues until October 1929. Meetings were held fortnightly and were generally attended by the chairman and councillors, with the city treasurer, engineer, and secretary usually attending, and caretakers sometimes present.
The committee had responsibility for all aspects of the maintenance and provision of working class dwellings, including overseeing construction and completion, repayment of construction loans, allocating housing, transfers, collection of rents, pursuing defaulters, repairs, complaints, and matters arising. It also had responsibility for the upkeep and use of City Hall, hearing applications for use of the Hall, maintaining fabric and fittings, and managing the Hall and its offices.
The minutes note committee accounts, treasurer’s returns of rents and arrears, caretakers’ reports of defaulters, and proposals for tenancies in the various Corporation housing blocks Also noted are applications for use of City Hall, usually by charitable, social, musical, and sporting groups and other organisations. Caretakers of working class dwellings collected rents, supervised the buildings and tenants, and made reports to the Committee. A visiting sub-committee periodically inspected the buildings.
One of this series’ main points of interest is that it names prospective tenants approved or rejected for Corporation housing. A note from 1914 inserted in the first volume present records that there were then 565 homes in 8 schemes, built between 1886 and 1905: Madden’s (1886); Ryan’s (1888); Horgan’s (1891); Roche’s (1892); Corporation (1896); Sutton’s (1905); Kelleher’s (1905); Barrett’s (1905). MacCurtain’s Buildings, French’s Villas, and McSwiney Villas were completed in 1924, with schemes on Evergreen Road and Capwell Road completed later in the 1920s. The minutes document the running and development of social housing in the city in this period. Furthermore, they shed light on the history of the old City Hall, although curiously no direct reference is made to the burning of this Hall on 11-12 December 1920, with hardly any reference to City Hall in the minutes after this date. A new City Hall opened on the same site in 1936.
From November 1924 to March 1929, while the Corporation was dissolved, meetings were attended by the City Commissioner (later City Manager), with other officers sometimes attending. City Manager Monahan continued to attend meetings, without Councillors present, up to 14 November 1929, when the present series ends.
Extent4 volumes
LanguageEnglish
Persons keywordCork City Council, Cork Corporation
AccessOpen by appointment to those holding a current readers ticket
RightsSubject to Rules Governing Reproduction of Records
Levelseries
RepositoryCork City and County Archives