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Support to Charities

Each year, the Cathedral chooses to support two charities, one local and the other international. For 2011and 2012 the charities are the Mitchell Hospital and Christian Aid.

The Mitchell Hospital is a small, long-standing charity which provides special housing in Old Aberdeen for women, serving as a sanctuary for those facing difficulties in life. There is an urgent need for funds to renovate the accommodation.

Christian Aid Scotland is the formal partner of the Church of Scotland in the fight to combat poverty in the world. Christian Aid aims to tackle the root causes of poverty as well as its devastating effects. It responds to disasters with emergency aid, but also provides long-term development aid to help the poorest communities in the world improve their standard of living.

Each year the Cathedral participates in house-to-house collections and other fundraising during Christian Aid Week, and our Sunday School has special links with the Uganda School Trust.

LENT APPEAL

From Sunday 26th February until Palm Sunday 1st April, as in previous years, you are invited to support the St Vincent de Paul Charity which distributes food to those in need in Aberdeen, by donating food or money. Food suitable for main meals is preferred such as medium tins of baked beans, mince, ravioli, hot dogs, also teabags and biscuits if well within ‘sell-by’ dates. Please hand money donations to duty elders. A container for food tins etc. will be situated under the oval table.

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© Old Aberdeen Community Council

The Mitchell Hospital

Mitchell Hospital is a beautiful early Victorian Single-storey H-plan edifice of coursed rubble that stands in an attractive walled garden space in the south-western vicinity of St Machar’s Cathedral.  The hospital was founded in 1801 by David Mitchell Esq. who, although living in Old Aberdeen, was actually from Holloway-Down in Essex.  Amongst the original features of the building of particular note include the bellcote situated on the centre gable (such bell housings are normally associated to chapels or churches which have no bell towers) and the sundial in the courtyard at the front of the building.
Although termed a ‘Hospital’, the building was not actually a hospital in traditional medical terms, but was in reality an Almshouse.  Almshouses had a long tradition in Europe and had been present in Britain from the 10th century.  Normally Christian institutions, they were established to provide a place of residence for the poor, old, and distressed members of the community, and were generally maintained by a charity or the trustees of a bequest.   

To this end, on completion  Mitchell Hospital was described as consisting of a refectory, kitchen and neatly fitted up dormitories, built with the purpose of providing lodgings and clothing to maintain five widows and five unmarried daughters of merchant and trades burgesses of Old Aberdeen.  Although benefactor David Mitchell endowed the building, from its completion the principal, sub-principal and professor of divinity in Kings College; the burgh’s provost, eldest Baillie, two ministers and convener of the trades were then appointed as the trustees and governors of the hospital.    
Before being converted into individual cottages in 1924, the building continued to provide refuge and assistance to many female members of the community, and in 1911, the Encyclopaedia Britannica in describing the burgh of Aberdeen noted that along with the Woolmanhill Royal Infirmary, the Female Orphan Asylum, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, the Maternity Hospital, the City Hospital for Infectious Diseases and the Deaf and Dumb Institution, Mitchell Hospital was amongst Aberdeen’s most notable charitable institutions.   
According to Historic Scotland, the Hospital had two recorded restorations dating from 1924 and 1965, and is now categorised as a protected ‘A’ listed Building.   

By Keith B Pirie BA(Hons)

The Trustees of the Mitchell Hospital now are:-

the Principal of the University of Aberdeen

the Professor of Divinity of the University of Aberdeen

and the Minister of St Machar’s Cathedral.