Dispensary movement in Manchester

These organisations were intended to care for sick people and were a consequence of the rapid population growth, expansion in area and public health issues experienced by the city as it industrialised.

The population was increasing significantly and was spreading widely into new industrial and residential suburbs, making it impractical for the hospital to expand its system of home visits for the care and treatment of patients.

[1] The first of these new Dispensaries opened in the township of Chorlton Row (now Chorlton-on-Medlock) around 1825, probably as a reaction to an epidemic of fever in that area at the time and with knowledge of a scheme that had been established in Blackburn one year earlier.

Thus, the Chorlton Select Vestry, comprising all the major ratepayers of the area and responsible for the administration of the Poor Law, provided money to enable care for paupers who needed medical assistance.

The Chorlton Dispensary was based in the newly constructed Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall from about 1832 and its first president was Hugh Hornby Birley (1778–1845), a significant owner of textile mills in the area.