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 In 1852 advertisements for a schoolteacher specified that the candidate should have a working knowledge of agriculture in order to instruct the boys about the farm, an integral part of the workhouse. It was perhaps one of the most important parts of the workhouse complex building in that it provided work for men and boys, […]

The management of the Magherafelt Workhouse was meticulous and much credit due to John Steele, who was clerk much of the first forty years of its history. Every penny was accounted for and carefully reported to the Poor Law Commissioners. This information was in turn sent to the government and published in a raft of […]

By the end of the Famine John Stewart Vesey MD had emerged as one of the more prominent members of the workhouse administration, although Rowley Miller of Moneymore as chairman; Andrew Spotswood of Millbrook, Magherafelt as vice chairperson; John Stevenson of Fortwilliam, Tobermore as Deputy vice-chairman, and John Steele as clerk and returning officer were […]