Gloucestershire Hospitals

Gloucestershire Hospitals

Bristol Fever Hospital
Bristol Royal Infirmary
Clearwell Cottage Hospital
Cotswold Sanatorium
Gloucester Childrens Hospital
Gloucester Eye Hospital
Gloucester General Infirmaries
Gloucester Isolation Hospitals
Gloucester Maternity Hospitals
Gloucester Hospitals
Painswick Sanatorium

Gloucestershire Hospitals

p 269 Gloucester : Public Services : Hospitals
p 269 General Infirmaries
p 271 Maternity Hospitals
p 271 Eye Hospital
p 271 Children's Hospital
p 272 Dispensaries
p 272 Isolation Hospitals
p 273 Mental Hospitals

In the 18th and 19th centuries several hospitals were opened in and around Gloucester in private initiatives 1 The most important, the Gloucester Infirmary, dated from 1755. In the early 19th century the county and city joined in the building of a lunatic asylum at Wotton and later the county built a second asylum in Barnwood. The city, which provided infectious diseases hospitals and in 1930 took over the infirmary of the Gloucester poor-law union, later built a maternity hospital.

Before that a voluntary body had been the main provider of midwifery services in Gloucester. Anglican orders of nuns ran a children's hospital from 1867.

In 1948 the Gloucester, Stroud, and the Forest hospital management committee took control of the county and city general infirmaries, the maternity hospital, and an infectious diseases hospital at Over. The Horton Road and Coney Hill hospital management committee controlled the two mental hospitals from 1948 until 1965 when it amalgamated with the Gloucester, Stroud, and the Forest management committee.2 A private hospital in Barnwood became an independent registered mental hospital and the work of the two dispensaries was continued under the national Health Service in health centres provided by the city corporation, acting as local health authority.

In the early 1960's a new general hospital was begun in Great Western Road and from the mid 1960's the city provided new buildings at Rikenel house in Montpellier as the centre for its health and welfare services. 3 At reorganization in 1974 the Gloucestershire area health authority took over the functions of both the hospital management committee and the local health authority, and in 1982 most of those functions devolved upon the Gloucester district health authority. A private hospital opened in the city in 1981. 4
Notes :-
1 This article was written in 1982 and revised in 1986.
2 Glos. R.O., HO 22/26/4, 14.
3 Rep. of Medical Off. of health, 1973, 30-1; Copy in G.B.R., N 2/10/5.
4 Citizen, 8 Feb. 1983.

General Infirmaries.
In the mid 1720's a hospital at Gloucester belonged to Mr Singleton, 5 possibly Luke Singleton who later designed the Gloucester Infirmary. 6 Bishop Martin Benson collected subscriptions for an infirmary in the city and in 1752 left £200 for such a project. In 1754 a scheme for a dispensary in Stroud was extended to provide a county hospital at Gloucester. A subscription opened later that year 7 received wide support. The principal benefactors included Norberne Berkeley of Stoke Gifford, M.P. for the county, and the Revd. George Talbot of Temple Guiting. Benson's bequest was paid into the fund. 8

In 1755 it was decided to build the Gloucester Infirmary outside the south gate and a temporary infirmary was opened at the Crown and Sceptre inn in lower Westgate Street. It was supported by voluntary contributions and the governors met every Thursday to manage It and admit patients. It was intended for patients from any country unable to pay for their keep and medicine. Admission was by subscriber's ticket and a donation of £20 conferred the same privileges as a subscription of £2-2s-0d. Physicians and surgeons from the city gave their services free of charge and the resident staff included an apothecary, who had general care of the patients, a matron, and a secretary. Samuel Colborne, the first apothecary, came from London. Insetting up the infirmary the governors took the Northampton Infirmary as their model and sent the matron and secretary to the Bristol Infirmary for instruction. 9

In 1756 the governors acquired a lease of the site for the county infirmary 10 and George II gave timber from the Forest of Dean for building it. 11 patients were admitted from 1761 12 and the temporary infirmary was closed. The infirmary in lower Souhgate Street was built in brick to plans by Luke Singleton, approved after consultation with the Bath architect John Wood. 13 It had two storeys on a high basement and north and south wings contained the four principal wards, each with 18 beds. An extensive kitchen garden with orchard was laid out behind it. 14 In 1780 land behind the Independent Chapel on the other side of the street was given to the infirmary for a burial ground, consecrated in 1781. 15 In 1788 George III. During his stay in Cheltenham, visited the infirmary. 16

The infirmary's ordinary income was supplied by subscriptions. Extraordinary income came from many gifts and legacies, including a bequest of £10,000 stock from Martha Davies (d. 1871), collections, and amercements assigned by courts. Many parishes subscribed to provide treatment in the infirmary for their poor. Chedworth in 1760 was the first, and by 1788 forty, including two outside the county, were subscribing. Several endowed charities and benefactions ensured treatment for the poor of certain places in the county. 17

From its beginning the infirmary was faced with abuse of its charity 18 and problems of over-crowding, rising costs, and insufficient ordinary income. In 1784 the governors appointed a committee to look into the state of the infirmary and its finances and in 1785 a trust fund was set up to augment ordinary income. 19 Part of the principal was later used to meet continuing deficits. In 1796 another committee investigated the finances and Sir George Paul, in a detailed analysis, observed that the root of the problems of overcrowding and finance was the increasing number of subscribers following the drop in real value of subscriptions. 20 From that time the recommending privileges of subscribers were limited 21 but financial problems continued and in the early 1840's invested funds were sold. 22

In 1846 the governors elected a supervising committee and limited membership of the weekly board. 23 In 1866 a committee of investigation recommended considerable changes to increase the usefulness of the infirmary, which then had 118 beds, and improve its management, staffing, and facilities. 24 In 1867 the management was entrusted to a committee of governors which chose the weekly board from its members. At the same time the system of recommendation by ticket was relaxed to allow free admission for emergency cases. Subscribers' recommending rights were increased, particularly in the out-patient department which had been underused. 25 In the later 19th century the number of patients recommended by subscribers dwindled and the infirmary became more like a free hospital. 26 In 1878 the Gloucestershire Eye Institution amalgamated with the Infirmary, 27 and Edward VII granted the title of the Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary and Eye Institution in 1909. 28 From 1922 all in-patients paid for their keep according to mans unless they were members of a contributory scheme. 29

The first major enlargement of the infirmary was a south wing to designs by Thomas Rickman and Henry Hutchinson begun in 1825. It contained 54 beds in three wards. 30 On the north side a wing, built following a diversion of Parliament Street, opened in 1871. It was designed by A.W. Maberley. And contained an out-patient department and two surgical wards. In 1885 it was enlarged and another ward created in it. 31 A nurses' home completed in 1904 32 was enlarged several times in the 1920's and 1930's. Following the opening in 1932 of a detached block with specialist departments and clinics and 16 beds for paying patients the infirmary had 216 beds and 3 operating theatres. 33

On the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948 the infirmary was amalgamated with Gloucester City general Hospital and from 1949 was known as the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. 34 In the early 1960's a new general hospital for the Gloucester district was begun in Great Western Road, and departments and clinics were moved from lower Southgate Street as buildings on the new site were completed. 35 The wards in Southgate Street were closed in 1975 36 and only a few services remained there in the early 1980's. In 1984 the main part of the old infirmary was demolished and the nurses home was disused.

Gloucester City general Hospital was formerly the infirmary of the Gloucester poor-law union. The infirmary behind the union workhouse was demolished in 1850 to make way for the South Wales railway 37 and replaced by a detached building west of the workhouse, designed by the firm of John Jacques & Son and completed in 1852. 38 In 1912 the guardians began a 149 bed infirmary on a block system on the other side of Great Western Road. 39 Patients were transferred to the east block of the new building in 1914. The British Red Cross Society took over the west block for nursing war wounded in 1914 and the east block in 1915. The guardians completed the building after the war. 40 In 1930 the infirmary was transferred to the corporation and became known as Gloucester City General Hospital. 41 On the introduction of the National Health Service it was amalgamated with the Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary. 42 Later the Great Western Road buildings and the adjoining land, which included a maternity hospital and wooden huts erected in 1942 for treatment of war wounded, were chosen for the new Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, begun in the early 1960's. The first departments were opened in 1964 and others in succeeding years, including in 1975 the main feature of the new hospital, a tower block of 11 storeys. 43 Older buildings in the area, including the former Home of Hope, 44 continued in use in 1982 when the hospital had 618 beds, excluding those in the maternity hospital. 45
Notes :-
5 Glos. R.O., P 154/11/IN 1/2, burials 25 Aug. 1724, 7 Apr. 1725.
6 Glouc. Jnl. 29 Aug. 1768.
7 Ibid. 6 Feb.1753; 12 Feb., 10 Sept. 1754; for Benson's will, P.R.O., PROB 11/797 (P.C.C. 249 Bettesworth), ff. 176-9.
8 Glos. R.O., HO 19/8/1; cf. Rudder, Glos. 58, 699, 466.
9 Glos. R.O., HO 19/1/1-2; 8/1; cf. Ibid. D 3269, surv.bk. 1741-90, f. 65.
10 Ibid. HO 19/11/1.
11 Ibid. 1/2; 8/1, rep. 1762.
12 Glouc. Jnl. 21 July 1761.
13 Glos. R.O., HO 19/1/1-2; 8/1.
14 Ibid. 8/1, rep. 1763, detail reproduced above, Plate 46.
15 G.Whitcombe, General Infirmary at Glouc. (1903), 18; plan of Southgate chap. before Apr. 1850 among W.Midland provincial archives of United Reformed Ch. Leamington Spa.
16 Whitcombe, Gen. Infirmary, 15.
17 Glos. R.O., HO 19/8/1-2; Whitcombe, Gen. Infirmary, 27-36.
18 Glos. R.O., HO 19/1/2, min. 15 Jan. 1756.
19 Ibid. 5/1; 12/1.
20 G.O.Paul, Observations on state of Glouc. Infirmary 1796.
21 Ibid.; Glos.R.O., HO 19/1/7, min. 11 Aug. 1797; 10, min. 1 Sept. 1827.
22 Whitcombe, Gen. Infirmary, 39-41.
23 Glos. R.O., HO 19/8/1.
24 Ibid. 1/19, rep. at pp.191-2.
25 Ibid. pp. 251-60.
26 Ibid. 8/2, rep. 1876, 1880; 3, rep. 1894.
27 Ibid. D 195/1/2.
28 Glouc. Jnl. 26 June 1909.
29 Glos. R.O., HO 19/8/6.
30 Ibid. 1/10-11.
31 Ibid. 8/1-2; Whitcombe, Gen Infirmary, 20-2.
32 Glos. R.O., HO 19/8/4.
33 Ibid. 6-7.
34 B. Frith. Story of Glouc. Infirmary (1961), 17.
35 Glos. Colln. NR 19-9.
36 Cotswold Life, Nov. 1975, 38.
37 Glouc. Jnl. 28 Sept. 1850; cf. Causton, Map of Glouc, (1843).
38 Glos. R.O., G/GL 8A/6.ff.113v-193v,; Bd. of Health Map (1852).
39 Glouc. Jnl. 13 Apr. 1912.
40 Glos. R.O., G/GL 185/2, 4,5; ME 3, pp.15 and n.,28.
41 G.B.R., B 3/64, pp.414-15, 634.
42 Frith, Glouc. Infirmary, 17.
43 Glos. Colln. NR 19-9; Cotswold Life, Nov. 1975, 38-40.
44 Cf. Deeds in 1981 in possession of Glos. area health authority, Burlington Ho., Chelt.
45 Medical Dir. (1981), ii. 137.

Maternity Hospitals.
In 1793 the surgeon Charles Brandon Trye and the Revd. Thomas Stock, founded a lying-in charity for poor women. From 1800 it was supported by subscriptions and from 1813 it was supervised by the Revd. F.T. Bayley. 46 The charity provided the services of two surgeons at St. John's National school in Worcester Street in 1856 and at Christ Church National School at the Spa in 1870, and helped c.100 patients a year in the mid 1880's. 47 From 1894 the charity made payments to the Gloucester District Nursing Society for its midwifery work. The society, a voluntary body founded in 1884 to provide trained nurses for the sick poor in their own homes, became an important provider of maternity and other services in and around the city and trained nurses and midwives. Its principal benefactor William Long (d.1914) left it £10,000. In 1917 the society opened a ward with four beds for maternity cases in its premises at the corner of Clarence and Russell Streets, and in the following years extended its services, particularly after 1934 when it introduced a provident contributory scheme. 48 In 1927 Mary Fluck founded a convalescent home in Longford for women and children of the city and neighbourhood. 49

From 1931 the Gloucester District Nursing Society attended maternity cases at the City General Hospital in Great Western Road. Also in conjunction with the city corporation the society ran an antenatal clinic begun in 1928, 50 provided a domiciliary midwifery service under the Midwives Act of 1936, 51 and ran a maternity hospital from 1940. That year the corporation requisitioned and fitted the Fluck convalescent home as a temporary maternity hospital while it built Gloucester Maternity Hospital, a single storeyed building which opened behind the City general Hospital in 1943. 52 The society continued to run the hospital and to provide services for the corporation under the National Health Service. 53 The corporation opened an antenatal and infant welfare clinic in the Great Western Road in 1962. 54 In 1966 as part of the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital a new maternity hospital and midwives' home was opened behind the older hospital, which became a general practitioner maternity unit. 55 In 1981 the maternity hospital had 111 beds. 56 From 1963 the work of the Gloucester District Nursing Society for the corporation was reduced and in 1971 the society's agency agreement for running the maternity hospital was ended. 57 Under a Scheme of 1974 the society provided help for the sick poor of the city and adjoining parishes. 58 The Fluck convalescent home was used by the corporation as a children's home in the mid 1940's. 59 Under a Scheme of 1956 the endowments supported a fund which helped poor convalescent women and children 60 and in 1971 had an income of £3,600. 61
Notes :-
46 D. Lysons, Life of Chas. Brandon Trye (1812), 7; Glouc. Jnl. 24 Jan. 1814.
47 Kelly's Dir. Glos. (1856), 303; (1870), 555.; (1885), 470.
48 Rep. Glouc. District Nursing Soc. 1885, 1894, 1900, 1915; Glos. Colln. N 13.80; Hist. Glouc. District Nursing Soc. (1938), 7-15.
49 Glouc. Jnl. 4 June 1927; Glos. Colln. N 20.18.
50 Rep. Glouc. District Nursing Soc, 1929, 1931..
51 G.B.R., B 3/70 (2),pp. 1790-1; 71 (1), pp.336-8,
52 Hist.Glouc.District Nursing Soc. (1960), 21: Rep. of Medical Off. of Health 1938-45, 36; copy in G.B.R., N 2/10/5.
53 Hist. Glouc. District Nursing Soc. (1960), 22-3.
54 Glouc. Municipal Year Bk. (1965-5), 84.
55 Glos. Colln. NR 19.9.
56 Medical Dir. (1981), ii. 137.
57 Rep. of Medical Off. of Health 1973, 29-30.
58 Glos. R.O., D 3469/5/67, file marked `Glouc. District Nursing Soc.'
59 Rep. of Medical Off. of Health, 1938-45, 36.
60 Glos. R.O., D 3469/5/67, file marked `Fluck Convalescent Fund,'
61 Ibid. CH 21, Glouc.co. boro., p. 12.