Guest blog by Philip Grant
July 5th
2018 sees the 70th anniversary of the founding of the National
Health Service, and there will be a community tea party in Wembley’s Yellow
Pavilion the following day (Friday 6th July, from 1pm to 4pm) to celebrate
the event:-
But
what medical facilities did the ordinary folk of Wembley have before the NHS
was set up, and who provided these? I was invited to provide some “local
history” information for this NHS70 event, and I would like to share some of it
with “Wembley Matters” readers here.
Ever
since Tudor times (after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries who had often
provided some health care to the areas around them) the Church of England
parishes were expected to provide care to poor people within their district.
Every year each parish appointed two or three local men to serve as Overseers
of the Poor, raising money to meet the costs of providing “relief” and (if they
were lucky) some basic medical care.
Most of
Wembley was in the Harrow parish, but in the 1840’s two spinster sisters, Anne
and Francis Copland, who had inherited their father’s estate at what is now
Barham Park, campaigned for Wembley and Sudbury to be made a separate parish,
and paid to have St John’s Church built in Harrow Road, not far from their
home. They were great philanthropists, providing
money for a school, and a workmen’s hall (including a small library).
Anne Copland, c.1860
In 1871 (the year before she died) Anne Copland
gave money to build and endow a Village Hospital. The site is now Wilkinsons,
in Wembley High Road, near the junction with Park Lane.
Charles Goddard,
Unfortunately,
Anne had said that only the interest (at 4%) from the investments she had given
the hospital could be used to fund its running costs, and the hospital had to
stop taking inpatients in 1883. After that, the building became a doctor’s
house, at which the sick could be seen, and given medicines from a dispensary.
The doctor living in the former cottage hospital, Charles
Goddard, became Wembley’s first Medical Officer of Health, when it was
made a separate District Council in 1895. He held that post for around forty
years, and in 1924 he called a public meeting to propose that a new hospital be
built. There was a lot of support from local people, and Titus Barham (who
owned the Express Dairy Company, and lived at Sudbury Park, which had been the
home of the Copland sisters) donated land at Chaplin Road, which was part of
his own dairy farm, as a site for the new Wembley Hospital. Barham also
donated £2,000 towards the cost of building it, and he and his wife Florence
were active in organising fund-raising events for the project as well.
The foundation stone for the hospital was laid
in October 1926, a Board of Management for the hospital was set up, and the new
hospital was opened on 2 June 1928 by the Duke and Duchess of York (later King
George VI and Queen Elizabeth, who became the Queen Mother when their daughter
succeeded to the throne in 1952).
Wembley Hospital,
around 1950.
When Titus Barham, who had been the hospital’s president, died in 1937, he left a further
£20,000 to Wembley Hospital in his will. But as a charity (a bit like St Luke’s Hospice today), it needed to regularly raise
money from other sources. One of the ways this was done was by holding an
annual hospital carnival week, with a Carnival Queen, street parade and various
fundraising events. Another important source of funds was a “hospital savings
scheme”,
where by paying contributions of sixpence a month (made by 20,000 of the 90,000
residents in Wembley and Kingsbury in the late 1930’s) local people were
entitled to free treatment in the “public wards”.
The Anne Copland Ward at
Wembley Hospital, around 1950.
When the NHS was set up in 1948, Wembley
Hospital was absorbed into this new service, but although its management had
changed, it still provided the same type of care to its patients. Like many
other hospitals, as well as training local young women as nurses (under the
supervision of the Matron), Wembley also benefitted from some who came from the
Caribbean (another 70th Anniversary! – LINK
Christmas time in the
Children’s Ward, Wembley Hospital, 1950’s
Wembley Hospital’s role diminished over time,
especially after the new District Hospital at Northwick Park was built in the
late 1960’s, but its site in Chaplin Road is still providing a range of health
services for local people (me included!) as the Wembley Centre for Health
and Care. So, Happy
70th birthday NHS, and thank you.
Philip Grant
Acknowledgement
All images are from the Wembley History Society Collection
at Brent Archives.
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