Royal Herbert Hospital

Last updated

Royal Herbert Hospital
Royal Army Medical Corps
Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich Wellcome L0050103.jpg
Royal Herbert Hospital: the gatehouse block
Greenwich London UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location within Greenwich
Geography
Location Shooter's Hill, London, England, United Kingdom
Coordinates 51°28′15″N0°03′03″E / 51.4708°N 0.0507°E / 51.4708; 0.0507
Organisation
Care system Military
History
Opened1865
Closed1977
Links
Lists Hospitals in England

Initially the Herbert Hospital, renamed in 1900, the Royal Herbert Hospital was built as a restorative facility for British veterans of the Crimean War, and remained a military hospital until 1977. It was situated in southeast London, on the south side of Woolwich Common, on the western slopes of Shooter's Hill, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Today the former hospital buildings form a residential development known as the Royal Herbert Pavilions.

Contents

History

The hospital was built on the authority of Sidney Herbert, responsible for sending Florence Nightingale to the Crimea, leader of War Office reforms after this campaign, and passionate about health care and reducing military mortality rates from diseases and ill-treated war wounds. Designed by chief architect Sir Douglas Galton (of the Royal Engineers), the hospital is notable for the design inputs of Nightingale (Galton's aunt and his cousin by marriage). [1] It opened on 1 November 1865 [2] and in the following year Jane Catherine Shaw Stewart, Nightingale's colleague, became responsible for the nurses until she was obliged to stand down after accusations of bullying. [3]

Aerial view showing pavilion layout, 1866 The Herbert Military Hospital, Woolwich; the silhouette of t Wellcome V0013880.jpg
Aerial view showing pavilion layout, 1866

It utilised a new approach to open planning, and was based on the revolutionary 'pavilion' design whereby each ward was connected to a central corridor to maximise daylight and fresh air intake. Nightingale explained:

"All the wards are raised on basements, those at the lower end of the ground are so lofty as to afford excellent accommodation… Every ward has a large end window, commanding beautiful views." [4]

Enclosed in 19 acres of landscaped gardens, and sitting adjacent to Woolwich Common and the ancient Oxleas Woods, the hospital quickly became a design figurehead for dozens more hospitals, both public and military. The revolutionary construction methods included the use of cavity wall construction, fireproof floors, and a system for heating incoming fresh air. Proving an appropriate response to Nightingale's reflection that:

"no ward is in any sense a good ward in which the sick are not at all times supplied with pure air, light and a due temperature. These are the results to be obtained from hospital architecture." [5]

The building work of the hospital cost £209,139 and the land purchase was £6,394. [6]

Queen Victoria's visit in March 1900 Boer War; Queen Victoria presenting flowers to a wounded sol Wellcome V0013881.jpg
Queen Victoria's visit in March 1900

The hospital was considered to be such a leap forward in design and patient treatment that a new Commission of 1883 congratulated it as "one of the best of the modern great hospitals". In 1900 Queen Victoria visited soldiers in the hospital who had been injured in the Boer War, and granted her Royal Patronage. [2]

World War service

Basement Ward, 1941: watercolour by official war artist Edward Ardizzone Royal Herbert Hospital, Woolwich- a Basement Ward Art.IWMARTLD1549.jpg
Basement Ward, 1941: watercolour by official war artist Edward Ardizzone

The Royal Herbert Hospital was actively involved in the care of the wounded from the First World War and the Second World War. During the first, it was the location of Enid Bagnold's A Diary Without Dates when Bagnold was a V.A.D. there. During World War Two, the Royal Herbert Military Hospital admitted civilian patients when the nearby Royal Arsenal was bombed by the German Luftwaffe. Any downed pilots and navigators were taken as prisoners of war (POWs) and treated for their injuries at the Royal Herbert, where a separate Luftwaffe officers and NCOs ward was set up. [6]

The hospital provided orthopaedic, general surgical and medical wards for army personnel and their families. At its peak the hospital had 15 wards which accommodated 650 beds. This included a guardroom and prison ward for 28 army prisoners. [7]

Closure and redevelopment

Before it closed the hospital had become the Army's main orthopaedic centre and contained the Army schools for physiotherapy, x-rays, and medical clerks' and nurses' preliminary training. [1] The hospital closed in 1977 and for a period of time became derelict. [1]

In 1986, American new wave band Animotion filmed the music video for their single "I Engineer" [8] and Kate Bush filmed the video for "Experiment IV" in the then abandoned hospital. [9]

Demolition was thought likely, but as a Grade II listed building in the Woolwich Common Conservation Area it was preserved. In 1990, the empty and disused site was purchased by a property developer and developed into 228 luxurious flats and apartments called the Royal Herbert Pavilions. Completed in 1995, today's site incorporates a leisure club, private bar, tennis courts, swimming pool and outdoor nature reserve. [1]

Opposite the hospital, the Royal Army Medical Corps Officers' Mess was built in 1909; renamed Victoria House, it was sold by the Ministry of Defence in 2013. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Nightingale</span> English social reformer, statistician, and founder of modern nursing

Florence Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organised care for wounded soldiers at Constantinople. She significantly reduced death rates by improving hygiene and living standards. Nightingale gave nursing a favourable reputation and became an icon of Victorian culture, especially in the persona of "The Lady with the Lamp" making rounds of wounded soldiers at night.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Thomas' Hospital</span> Hospital in London, England

St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS teaching hospital in Central London, England. Administratively part of the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, together with Guy's Hospital, Evelina London Children's Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital and other sites. It is also a member of King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre, and is one of three sites used by King's College London GKT School of Medical Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital</span> Hospital in England

The Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital is a private hospital in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. It is a Grade II listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Pitt, Kent</span> Napoleonic fort in Chatham, Kent

Fort Pitt is a Napoleonic era fort on the high ground of the boundary between Chatham and Rochester, Kent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Netley Hospital</span> Hospital in England

The Royal Victoria Hospital or Netley Hospital was a large military hospital in Netley, near Southampton, Hampshire, England. Construction started in 1856 at the suggestion of Queen Victoria but its design caused some controversy, chiefly from Florence Nightingale. Often visited by Queen Victoria, the hospital was extensively used during the First World War. It became the 28th US General Hospital during the invasion of mainland Europe in the Second World War. The main building – the world's longest building when it was completed – was entirely demolished in 1966, except for the chapel and former YMCA building, which still survive. The extensive outbuildings, which once occupied a vast acreage of land to the rear of the main building, finally succumbed in 1978. The site of the hospital can be seen and explored in Royal Victoria Country Park. The site had a railway station, which was connected by the Netley Hospital Branch Line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woolwich Garrison</span> Garrison in the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London, England

Woolwich Garrison is a garrison or station of the British Army. Geographically it is in Woolwich, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. In terms of command, it is within the Army's London District.

Sir Douglas Strutt Galton was a British engineer. He became a captain in the Royal Engineers and Secretary to the Railway Department, Board of Trade. In 1866 he was a member of the Royal Commission on Railways. From 1869 to 1875 he was Directory of Public Works and Buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queen Elizabeth Hospital, London</span> Hospital in London, England

Queen Elizabeth Hospital is a hospital in Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It was opened in March 2001 and serves patients from the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Bexley. The hospital was built to accommodate the services previously provided at Greenwich District Hospital and Brook General Hospital, and is a Private Finance Initiative hospital. It is managed by the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust.

Rosalind Frances Nash, née Shore-Smith was a journalist and co-operator, and the niece and confidante of Florence Nightingale. She assisted in some of Nightingale's publications, and wrote on her behalf to Karl Pearson while he was writing his biography of Francis Galton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Military Hospital</span> Hospitals run by the British military

British Military Hospitals were established and operated by the British Army, both at home and overseas during the 19th and 20th centuries, to treat service personnel. They varied in size, purpose and permanence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children</span> Hospital in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

The Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children is a specialised government children's hospital and medical centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is managed by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and is the only hospital in Northern Ireland dedicated to children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambridge Military Hospital</span> Former hospital in England

Cambridge Military Hospital was a hospital completed in 1879 in Aldershot Garrison, Hampshire, England which served the various British Army camps there. During World War I, the Cambridge Hospital was the first base hospital to receive casualties directly from the Western Front. It was also the first place where plastic surgery was performed in the British Empire under Harold Gillies. It is now the residential estate Gun Hill Park.

Mary Stanley (1813–1879) philanthropist and nurse, is best known for her dispute in the Crimea with her friend Florence Nightingale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pendlebury Children's Hospital</span> Hospital in Salford, England

Pendlebury Children's Hospital was a children's hospital in Pendlebury, Salford, England. It was managed by the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brook General Hospital</span> Hospital in London, England

The Brook General Hospital was the westernmost of three hospitals simultaneously situated on Shooter's Hill in southeast London in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It closed in 1996, and most of its buildings were subsequently demolished.

Beatrice Isabel Jones, was a British nurse who, after serving in several civilian hospitals, volunteered for military service. She served in the Second Boer War in South Africa and then later served during the First World War in Baghdad as matron-in-chief of Mesopotamia. She was one of the inaugural recipients of the Florence Nightingale Medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miller General Hospital</span> Hospital in England

The Miller General Hospital was a hospital in Greenwich, London from 1884 until 1974. It was developed adjacent to an earlier dispensary, and was the first British hospital designed with circular wards, and one of the first to have an X-ray department.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dulwich Community Hospital</span> Hospital in London, England

Dulwich Community Hospital was a hospital located in Dulwich, in South London.

Jessie Lennox (1830-1933) was a British nurse, trained at Florence Nightingale's school of nursing. She is also known for accompanying the writer Anna Mackenzie and Mary Livingstone, wife of David Livingstone, when they travelled to Africa to find him in 1862.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Campbell Norman</span> British Military nurse (1856–1913)

Helen Campbell Norman, RRC was a leading British military nurse who was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her role in the Anglo-Egyptian War. She was later in charge of nursing at Netley Hospital in Southampton.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 History of the Building, Royal Herbert Pavilions. Retrieved: 18 October 2015.
  2. 1 2 Royal institutions in Greenwich, Royal Borough of Greenwich. Retrieved: 18 October 2015.
  3. Wildman, Stuart (14 May 2020), "Stewart, Jane Catherine Shaw (1821–1905), nurse", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.107344, ISBN   978-0-19-861412-8 , retrieved 13 January 2024
  4. MacDonald, Lynn (2012). Florence Nightingale and Hospital Reform: the collected works of Florence Nightingale. Vol. 16. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 160. ISBN   978-0889204713.
  5. MacDonald, Lynn (2012). Florence Nightingale and Hospital Reform: the collected works of Florence Nightingale. Vol. 16. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 108. ISBN   978-0889204713.
  6. 1 2 Royal Herbert Hospital, Qaranc.co.uk. Retrieved: 18 October 2015.
  7. Unit History: Royal Herbert Hospital, Forces War Records. Retrieved: 18 October 2015.
  8. "Animotion "I, Engineer"". Youtube. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  9. Bush, Kate. "Kate Bush - Experiment IV - Official Music Video".
  10. "Victoria House, Woolwich". VSM Estates. Retrieved 14 September 2010.