Clifton House
A severe famine in the Ulster of 1741, when up to 300,000 people died as a result of harvest failure, bad weather and seed shortages forced the great and the good of Belfast to consider provision for the poor and destitute of the borough. By 1752, the Belfast Charitable Society was born in the town’s George Inn and promised ‘to consider a proper way to raise a sum for the building of a poor house & hospital & a new church in or near the town of Belfast’. Funds were raised by the sale of lottery tickets and by 1771 the foundation stone of Clifton House was laid on an eight acre site donated by the 5th Earl of Donegall. Amazingly after the best architects of the day submitted drawings the design of this beautiful building fell to an amateur, Robert Joy, who was a member of the board of the charitable society. The building opened in 1774 as the Belfast Poor House and provided its ‘inmates’ with daily balanced meals, including meat on Sundays in return for work such as spinning, weaving and net making.
Clifton House
A severe famine in the Ulster of 1741, when up to 300,000 people died as a result of harvest failure, bad weather and seed shortages forced the great and the good of Belfast to consider provision for the poor and destitute of the borough. By 1752, the Belfast Charitable Society was born in the town’s George Inn and promised ‘to consider a proper way to raise a sum for the building of a poor house & hospital & a new church in or near the town of Belfast’. Funds were raised by the sale of lottery tickets and by 1771 the foundation stone of Clifton House was laid on an eight acre site donated by the 5th Earl of Donegall. Amazingly after the best architects of the day submitted drawings the design of this beautiful building fell to an amateur, Robert Joy, who was a member of the board of the charitable society. The building opened in 1774 as the Belfast Poor House and provided its ‘inmates’ with daily balanced meals, including meat on Sundays in return for work such as spinning, weaving and net making.