File:Ruins of Poor House, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, burnt 7 November, 1882, photo January 1884.jpg
Original file (2,710 × 1,904 pixels, file size: 833 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)
Captions
Summary[edit]
DescriptionRuins of Poor House, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, burnt 7 November, 1882, photo January 1884.jpg |
English: Ruins of Halifax Poor Asylum, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, burnt Nov. 7, 1882; photo taken Jan., 1884 (on present site, viz. corner Robie & South Sts.).
The concept of the Victorian workhouse – the Poors’ Asylum or Poor House, as it was called in Halifax – has passed entirely from our collective memory and is now conjured up chiefly by Charles Dickens’ vivid recreations of life behind the workhouse walls. In Halifax, 31 people died on the night of 6 November 1882, when the Poor House burnt to a shell; more lives were lost in that blaze than in any other fire in the city’s history. The fire, which started accidentally in the kitchen area of the building, was discovered about 11:30 p.m. It spread quickly through the ceiling to the walls and the elevator, and then from the elevator shaft to the rest of the massive fortress-like structure. Unfortunately the watchman, fireman and nurses were of little assistance, since they were all inmates who were paid a couple of dollars a month to perform their duties; but because they had been incarcerated mainly for drunkenness, they were scarcely reliable – least of all that evening. Many of the 343 inmates were hysterical when the city firemen arrived. When the main door was felled with a fireman’s ax, pandemonium erupted. A crowd of inmates streamed outdoors – mothers nursing infants, some fifty to sixty children, elderly women and feeble old men – some partially clothed, others wrapped in blankets and still others naked. Police, firemen, clergy, reporters and spectators rushed into the building to assist or to carry the blind, lame and crippled to safety. Suddenly the building erupted into a raging inferno, with forty or fifty patients still trapped in the infirmary on the fifth floor. The Citizen and Evening Chronicle for 7 November described the gruesome scene: “Far above the roar of flames and crack of bursting slates were heard the cries of the wretched patients in the hospital, who were roasting to death. Most of them...were helpless, [and] could not leave their beds....” |
Date | |
Source | NSARM Photo Drawer - Places - Halifax - Buildings - Poor House / neg. no.: N-0877 [1] |
Author | Unknown authorUnknown author |
Licensing[edit]
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
This Canadian work is in the public domain in Canada because its copyright has expired due to one of the following:
it was not subject to Crown copyright, and
You must also include a United States public domain tag to indicate why this work is in the public domain in the United States. Note that this work might not be in the public domain in countries that do not apply the rule of the shorter term and have copyright terms longer than life of the author plus 50 years. In particular, Mexico is 100 years, Jamaica is 95 years, Colombia is 80 years, Guatemala and Samoa are 75 years, Switzerland and the United States are 70 years, and Venezuela is 60 years. العربية ∙ বাংলা ∙ čeština ∙ Deutsch ∙ English ∙ español ∙ suomi ∙ français ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ Nederlands ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenščina ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/− |
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.
Public domain works must be out of copyright in both the United States and in the source country of the work in order to be hosted on the Commons. If the work is not a U.S. work, the file must have an additional copyright tag indicating the copyright status in the source country.
Note: This tag should not be used for sound recordings.PD-1923Public domain in the United States//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ruins_of_Poor_House,_Halifax,_Nova_Scotia,_Canada,_burnt_7_November,_1882,_photo_January_1884.jpg |
File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
current | 05:06, 20 March 2013 | 2,710 × 1,904 (833 KB) | WarBaCoN (talk | contribs) | User created page with UploadWizard |
You cannot overwrite this file.
File usage on Commons
There are no pages that use this file.
Metadata
This file contains additional information such as Exif metadata which may have been added by the digital camera, scanner, or software program used to create or digitize it. If the file has been modified from its original state, some details such as the timestamp may not fully reflect those of the original file. The timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.
File change date and time | 00:57, 20 March 2013 |
---|