IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0387 QM
Held at: Barts Health NHS Trust Archives (Royal London Hospital Archives)
Title: Queen Mary's Maternity Home
Date(s): [1914]-1990
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 3.5 linear metres
Name of creator(s): Queen Mary's Maternity Home
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
During the First World War Queen Mary's Needlework Guild was established, with branches in many parts of the world, to make and distribute clothes and other items to Servicemen. At the conclusion of the War a considerable sum of money collected by the Guild was left unspent and Queen Mary decided to use these funds to endow a Maternity Home, for the benefit of wives and children of Servicemen. The Home opened in October 1919 in temporary premises at "Cedar Lawns", North End Road, Hampstead, a house provided by Lord Leverhulme. The foundation stone of the new building at Upper Heath, on a site again provided by Lord Leverhulme, was laid on 12th October 1921 and was designed to provide 16 beds. The new maternity home was occupied in July 1922. In August 1939 the Home was evacuated to Eynsham Hall, Oxfordshire, but moved again to Freeland House, Oxfordshire, in the Autumn of 1941. The Home returned to Hampstead in the winter of 1945-1946.
On 1st April 1946 the management of Queen Mary's Maternity Home was taken over by the London Hospital. On 1st February 1972 it was transferred to the Royal Free Hospital. With the closure of New End Hospital, Hampstead, in 1986 and its subsequent sale, funds became available for the development of Queen Mary House as a Care of the Elderly Unit, known as Queen Mary House, which opened under the management of the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in 1991.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Administrative records, deeds; financial records, patient registers; photographs, plans and architect's drawings and records from unofficial sources.
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
See Scope and content.
Conditions governing access:
Some material is restricted. Please contact the repository in the first instance.
Conditions governing reproduction:
Copying and digitisation services are available for unrestricted material. Researchers should contact the repository in the first instance.
Physical characteristics:
Finding aids:
See 'Detailed catalogue' link above.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information:
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Transferred from Queen Mary's House and Marie Celeste Samaritan Society at various dates between 1985 and 1991. Some of the photographs were donated by Miss Lois Beulah, Matron from 1942 to 1949.
ALLIED MATERIALS
Existence and location of originals:
Existence and location of copies:
Related material:
Publication note:
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Note:
Archivist's note: Originally compiled by Julie Tancell as part of the RSLP AIM25 project. Updated by Clare Button, Archivist, School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London.
Date(s) of descriptions: June 2001, updated April 2020.