East London Hospital for Children and Dispensary for Women

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0387 EL
Held at	: Barts Health NHS Trust Archives (Royal London Hospital Archives)   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/barts-health-archives ›
Full title	: East London Hospital for Children and Dispensary for Women
Date(s)	: 1868-c.1980
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 15 linear metres
Name of creator(s)	: East London Hospital for Children and Dispensary for Women
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The East London Hospital For Children And Dispensary For Women was founded in a converted warehouse at Ratcliff Cross in 1868, and originally known as the Shadwell Hospital for Women and Children. It was established by Dr Nathaniel and Mrs Sarah Heckford as a result of their experiences in Wapping during the 1866 Cholera outbreak. In 1875 the Hospital moved to a new building in Shadwell, helped by Charles Dickens raising funds by publishing two articles about the Hospital. In 1930 it had 136 beds. Its name was changed in 1932 to the Princess Elizabeth of York Hospital for Children.
In 1942 an Act of Parliament was passed to amalgamate the Hospital with The Queen's Hospital for Children in Hackney to form The Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. The Hospital was administered as one, but functioned on two sites: Queen Elizabeth, Hackney Road and Queen Elizabeth, Shadwell. A third site at Banstead, Surrey, the Banstead Wood Country Hospital, was opened in 1948. By the early 1960s the number of beds at Shadwell had fallen to less than 50. The Hospital was closed on 30th April 1963 and the building subsequently demolished.

The Queen's Hospital for Children was founded in 1867, in Virginia Road, Bethnal Green as the North Eastern Hospital for Children. The Hospital moved to Hackney Road, Bethnal Green, shortly after its foundation, and was renamed Queen's Hospital for Children in 1907. The Hospital was amalgamated with the Princess Elizabeth of York Hospital, Shadwell, in 1942, and renamed the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. The Queen Elizabeth Group Hospital Management Committee was formed in 1948 to administer The Queen Elizabeth Hospital on its three sites on Hackney Road, Shadwell and Banstead.
On the closure of the Shadwell site in 1963 the Hospital amalgamated with the Hackney Group to form the Hackney and Queen Elizabeth Group. This arrangement lasted until 1968, when the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was detached from the Hackney Group and placed under the Board of Governors of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. The Hospital's Convalescent Home was managed by a Committee which selected a site in Bognor in 1868. The foundation stone was laid in October 1897, and the Home closed in 1912.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Administrative records, financial records, patient records, nursing records, photographs, pharmacy records and miscellaneous records.

Access & 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.

Finding aids:

See 'Detailed catalogue' link above.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Transferred from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children to Tower Hamlets Library in May 1973 and to the Royal London Hospital Archives and Museum in 1985.

Allied Materials

Related material:

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

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.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
June 2001, updated April 2020.