The Newcastle Journal of 5 December 1902 (page 7) reported that week’s meeting of the Sunderland Board of Guardians, noting that the amount of distress in the region was increasing. One of the applicants seeking admission to the workhouse was “an able-bodied black man, aged 30. It appeared that he had been in Hartlepool Workhouse and had walked to Sunderland. The general feeling of the Board seemed that he should be admitted to the house, but several members raised objection (sic)”. One alderman claimed there were “five or six hundred of their own countryman out of employment and walking the streets”. Another commented that they could not place a black man in a ward along with white people, which had verbal support – and a sympathetic comment “the man was a stranger in a strange country, and therefore deserved their sympathy. It was agreed to give the man an order for one week in the house, and Pastor F. E. Marsh promised to do what he could to get him employment”.

Marsh later said that an offer of free beer to be given to the inmates of the workhouse on Christmas Day should be rejected.