Adobe PDF - Lincolnshire Archives Committee Archivists' Report 24 ...

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an electric power plant on ground near the river, some distance from
the works, only to find that when they wished to connect it to their
works by cables under streets, they met with opposition from Sir
Hickman Beckett Bacon who claimed to own the subsoil (2 B.D.
1 G / 1 I - 15). In 1g 18 the vicar of Holy Trinity agreed to let the vicarage
to Marshalls for a hostel for women working in the Company’s aircraft
works, and to let part of Holy Trinity Institute for a place of
recreation for the employees at the Carr House Aircraft Works (2 B.D.
1G/ 17). For the eriod after the first World War, there are documents
about the estab Pishment
of the Gainsborough and District United
Services Club, opened in 1921, which include its rules (2 B.D. 1G/22).
Other bundles provide brief, unexpected glimpses into three unrelated
aspects of life in Gainsborough: medical services, Roman
Catholicism and a general election. In 1884 the firm acted for George
Fyfe, M.D., who had recently bought a medical practice in the town,
in a suit brought against him’ by another doctor, Theodore Cassan,
who was Medical Officer to Marshalls’ Works Club, besides having
a small private practice. George Howard’s malady, described in
intimate detail by his wife and other women eye-witnesses, had not
been relieved by Cassan, who had left him without medical attention
until he could go into hospital. The distraught wife sought the aid
of Dr. Fyfe, who gave the requisite treatment unaware that the patient
was Cassan’s. The treatment, however, came too late and the patient
died. Cassan’s claim that Fyfe had spoken slanderous words about his
treatment of this case and his claim for damages failed. The records
include extracts from Marshalls’ Club Minute Book about unsatisfactory
treatment of other cases. Dr. Fyfe, it was revealed, gave advice
gratis on Tuesdays (2 B.D. ‘F/30).
The grandiose schemes and lack of financial sense of the Revd.
Michael J. Gorman, Roman Catholic priest at Gainsborough, which
brought the Catholics in the town into serious financial trouble, have
served to afford a glimpse into their affairs in the 1880s. In 1881
Gorman and the Revd. H. P. Cafferata, another priest, and the
Sisters of the Convent of Mercy, who had been at Gainsborough since
1877, contracted to buy the house belonging to W. H. Caldicott
called the Old Rectory, but subsequently they decided merely to take
a lease of it (2 B.D. 1C/2). An iron church was bought and erected
in the rectory garden. For El505 a large site was urchased for schools
to be run by the sisters, St. Joseph’s Collegiate Heminary,
and L2,300
‘was spent on the building. In 1880 the Duke of Norfolk had made
a loan to the Convent, and in 1882 Mrs. Anna Maria Grainger, sister
of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, lent ,E49000 on a
mortgage of the land and schools. In 1886 Gorman, Cafferata and
the former Mother Superior went bankru t and an assignment was
made for the benefit of their creditors. TKe Duke was pressing for
repayment of his loan and Mrs. Grainger was suing Gorman for her
rincipal and interest. Though a well-wisher gave E1ooo to be used
For
the benefit of the creditors, Mrs. Grainger had no chance of
recovering all her debt. In order, however, that she should recoup
as much as possible, before she exercised her power of sale as mortgagee,
in 1887, through the agency of Burton and Dyson, the land
was developed and built on and new streets-Spital Terrace and
Tennyson Street-were laid out. The iron church had been sold in
1886, and the purchaser of the schools intended to demolish them.