The idea
When the First World War ended in November 1918, nearly a million British servicemen had been killed. It was decided by the War Cabinet that they would be buried or commemorated where they had died, but communities all over Britain wanted a local focus for their remembrance of local people who had given their lives.
In Andover, discussions about a suitable memorial began in January 1919. The borough council felt that an extension to the town hall would be appropriate but soon abandoned the idea when the necessary finance proved unavailable. The town set up a War Memorial Committee to consider other suggestions. At the end of April 1919 Mr Edmund Parsons brought to the committee a proposal that the town’s memorial should be a new hospital. This was seconded by Mr Hayward, supported by Mr Ellen, Mr P Clarke and others, and so went forward to a public meeting.
At that time, in small towns like Andover, most acute medical care was done in cottage hospitals run by general practitioners. These independent hospitals relied for their funding on subscription, patients’ contributions and donations. They were administered by committees of voluntary lay people and staffed largely by doctors and surgeons working in honorary, unpaid posts. Local authorities provided asylums, isolation hospitals and poor law infirmaries.
Mr Edmund Parsons was the honorary secretary of Andover Cottage Hospital and therefore well placed to explain to the public meeting on 7 May 1919 the case for a new, purpose built independent hospital with modern facilities and more beds than the existing cottage hospital in Junction Road. There were some concerns but it was agreed to set up a committee to do more work on the proposal.
By the public meeting on 13 June 1919, it had been decided to build two memorials – a monument and a hospital. Two donation lists and two committees were set up – the Monument Committee chaired by the mayor, and the War Memorial Hospital Fund Raising Committee chaired by Dr Ernest A Farr with Mr Edmund Parsons as secretary and Mr J T Pankhurst as treasurer.
The money needed to build the monument was soon raised and the War Memorial designed by Capt. H R Cowley and constructed by Mr Harry Page of the Angel Yard Work, was dedicated in a ceremony on 5 May 1920. But the amount of money needed to build the hospital was an enormous sum for a small market town with a population at that time of only 8,500 and it would take seven years of dedicated community effort to raise it.
Fundraising for the hospital got off to a flying start, within two weeks a total of £1856 had been collected and a three acre site off Charlton Road had been donated by local businessman Henry Gamman who had lost both his sons in the war. From this time onwards, fundraising for the hospital became central to the life of the community and the Andover carnivals were started in 1924 to contribute to this effort. By 1925 sufficient funds had been raised by the town and district to allow building to start.
The architects
The architects appointed to design the new hospital were Edward Maufe and Leslie Moore of Grays Inn, London. Edward Brantwood Maufe may have come to the attention of the War Memorial Hospital Committee through their bankers, Lloyds Bank. In 1918 Lloyds had incorporated the Capital & Counties Bank who were bankers for the cottage hospital. Early in his career Maufe had been an architect for the Capital & Counties Bank in Station Road, Tidworth and he continued to design for Lloyds throughout the 1920s. He had also designed a house for Henry Gamman, donor of the land for the hospital. This was South Croye in Alexandra Road, built in 1924, and the house where Henry Gamman died in 1926 just weeks before the opening of the new hospital.
When he designed the hospital, Edward Maufe had already come to national prominence with his design for the Palace of Industry at the 1924 Wembley Exhibition and he was a silver medallist in the Paris Exhibition of 1925. He would go on to become very famous; his work includes Guildford Cathedral and the Air Forces and Magna Carta memorials at Runnymede. In 1954 he was knighted for his services to the War Graves Commission.
Leslie Thomas Moore’s early practice included the design of hospitals. During the war he served with the Royal Engineers in France and Belgium, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. After the war he became a partner and then son-in-law of the eminent church architect Temple Moore. When Temple Moore died suddenly in 1920, Leslie Moore completed many of his projects including All Saints Church in Basingstoke. Church work was not plentiful in the straightened financial conditions of the 1920s so he returned to a wider range of design. He later worked on the restoration of Peterborough Cathedral for more than 30 years.
Design and build
The hospital was built by Musselwhite & Son of Basingstoke, a large company that contracted over a wide area and had an established reputation for higher quality work. They tendered for the advertised contract but may also have been recommended by the architects as Maufe had worked with Musselwhite’s on the Capital & Counties Bank in Tidworth.
View of the new hospital from the south side (courtesy of Tony Raper)
During the construction Henry Gamman spent a great deal of money on the site, putting in drains, planting trees and erecting signage for the hospital.
The new hospital was designed in a late version of the Arts & Crafts style, a movement that had evolved from the 1860s onwards as a reaction against mass production in favour of individual craftsmanship. It affected all areas of the art and design and in architecture this developed into a vaguely cottage style that lasted until the 1930’s. Maufe’s design for Andover was among the final flowering of the genre.
On the ground floor there were three wards providing eight male, eight female and four children’s beds, plus two private single wards and one private twin bedded ward. All wards faced south with access to a terrace and the two main wards had balconies. Headphones were provided so that all patients could benefit from the Marconi ‘Straight Eight’ wireless set installed by Palmer & Edwards of Bridge Street, Andover.
The Operating Theatre (photographed by Edith Howard)
Also on the ground floor were a modern operating theatre and an X-ray room with the latest apparatus, for which two thirds of the cost had been met by the medical staff. On the first floor was accommodation for the nursing staff and the whole building was lit by electricity supplied by the Andover Electricity Co. The grounds were planted with fruit trees and shrubs and there was a tennis court for staff to use.
The X-Ray Room (photography by Edith Howard)
When it came to fitting out the interior, the hospital committee was careful to spread its custom around the town. Furnishings and drapery were purchased from Parsons & Hart, W P Clarke and Mr E Cordery; blankets and quilts from Lander Buckland & Son and B B Pond & Co; china from Rosa E Layton; household and garden requisites from T. Lynn & Sons and Mr M Crang; plates from J W Cocking and a clock from J M Bromwich & Co; furniture from Dugeys and Enham Village Centre; linoleum and blinds from Parsons & Hart and Andover Co-operative Society. Mrs du Puy Fletcher paid for the entire fitting out of one of the private wards.
Specialist equipment was purchased further afield. Sterilizers and theatre equipment from the Medical Supply Association of Gray’s Inn Road, London; beds from Nesbit-Evans Ltd of Wednesbury; a fracture bedstead from Whitfield’s Bedsteads of Birmingham Ltd; ward lockers and presses from Sage & Co; fire extinguishers from Minimax Ltd of Feltham and blinds for the X-ray room from J Avery & Co of London.
Men’s Ward, The Edmund Parsons Ward (photography by Edith Howard)
When it was completed, the hospital was one of the finest small hospitals in the country and The Nursing Mirror described it as ‘one of the most perfect of its kind in equipment, in beauty and in atmosphere’.
By June 1926 all was ready. Mr Frederick Colebrook undertook the removals from the cottage hospital to the new hospital and by 26 June the move was completed. The old building was bought by Hampshire County Council for use as a dispensary and welfare centre and would continue to be used for various health related services until 1971.
On 30 June 1926 Andover War Memorial Hospital was officially opened by Field Marshal the Viscount Allenby.
The Hospital Fundraising Committee on opening day
Back row l to r: JT Pankhurst, anon, Edmund Parsons
Front row l to r: Dr Ernest Farr’s daughter. Dr Ernest Farr, Matron Miss Emery, Field Marshal the Viscount Allenby, Major General Jack Seely, Mrs Seely, The Mayor (Roland B C Kendal), The Mayroess (Mrs Kendal). (courtesy of Tony Raper)
Continuity and change
Mrs Anna Isabella Jenkins became president of the new hospital and would continue in that role for the next 22 years. She and her husband Colonel Atherton Edward ‘Teddy’ Jenkins lived at Wherwell Priory.
All the members of the cottage hospital’s general committee became the general committee of the new hospital under the chairmanship of the Revd. W E Smith, the vicar of Andover. One person who did not continue was Miss Putz who had been matron of Andover cottage hospital for nearly 30 years. She decided in October 1925 that it would be an appropriate time to retire so her successor would have time to plan the move and organise the running of the new hospital.
She was held in such high regard by the community that at the last AGM of the cottage hospital on 17 March 1926 she was presented with £100, a considerable sum in those days, and an album containing the names of some 220 contributors. The new matron was Miss A Emery from Sheffield Royal Infirmary and she took up her post in January 1926.
A new Ladies Association and Linen League were formed to supply and care for the linen and garments required by the hospital. Lady John Joicey-Cecil was its president supported by vice-presidents Mrs Rickards and Mrs Jepson Turner.
The need for hospital treatment continued unabated and the justification for the new hospital was soon demonstrated. In its first six months of operations the new hospital treated 192 patients compared with 132 treated during the previous six months at the cottage hospital.
The hospital’s on-going need for money also continued. Throughout its life as an independent hospital, its funding would be dependent on subscriptions, its contributory scheme, collections, gifts and bequests.
The hospital was affiliated to the Contributory Scheme of the Royal Hampshire County Hospital (RHCH) in Winchester which had been started in the early 1920s in response to the financial crisis experienced by the RHCH after the war. The scheme provided free treatment in return for a weekly contribution, and Andover War Memorial Hospital was dependent on the untiring work of an army of unpaid collectors bringing in money each week from the town and villages all over its catchment area. Each year it acknowledged its debt to these people and provided a social event for them.
Finance was such a critical aspect of the hospital’s life that details of donations were given each week on the front page of the Andover Advertiser and in the Hampshire Chronicle. Funds came in from collecting boxes in the town, from regular church Sunday collections, from the Alexandra Rose Day, from charitable events large and small, and from other activities such as the collection and marketing of tin foil undertaken for many years by Miss K Layton of the Central Hotel. But the largest single contributor was the annual Andover carnival that began in 1924 and continued raising money for the hospital until stopped by the outbreak of war.
Every year there were also the hospital’s own pound days, when people were invited to donate a pound of any useful commodity, or egg day when they were invited to donate eggs, all of which would be used in the hospital. Even in the dark days of 1940 the hospital received donations of 1197lbs of goods and 4009 eggs. All donations were welcome – at the AGM of 1928 thanks were expressed for a donation of manure for the gardens and the carting of it to the hospital.
Years of fundraising had allowed the new hospital to open debt free and the generosity of the community, coupled with prudent financial management, allowed it to pay its way throughout the period as a voluntary hospital.
The early years
The hospital had a good credit balance when Mr Parsons presented his treasurer’s report for 1927 at the AGM. The cost per patient was below costs at many other hospitals, showing the hospital was being run economically and he assured his audience that there was no cheeseparing.
Although the hospital had money, there was the cost of on-going maintenance and medical equipment was always improving. In 1927 the eminent industrialist Sir Alfred Herbert, owner of the Dunley Estate in Whitchurch, donated a shadowless scialytic theatre light which was badly needed. Goodworth Clatford presented a lamp for artificial sunlight treatment. Medical staff contributed one third of the cost of the trolley X-ray set for use in the wards and the hospital also purchased a refrigerator.
Very soon in the life of the new hospital it was recognised that there was a pressing need for separate accommodation for difficult maternity cases, and in 1927 work started on the planning and fundraising to build it. The new maternity wing, designed by Edward Maufe, provided three individual wards, a sanitary block and a sterilising room. It was completed and paid for in 1929 and recorded its first birth on Christmas Day that year.
During 1930, a further 20 maternity cases were treated and at the AGM in 1931 Mr Parsons commended that ‘in view of the continued high rate of maternity mortality throughout the county it is a matter for congratulation that this ideal accommodation is provided for difficult cases in Andover and the neighbourhood’.
These early years saw some significant changes in personnel. In 1928, after 18 years as chairman, the Revd. W E Smith resigned and was replaced by Dr Ernest A Farr who had been on the medical staff of the hospital and its predecessor since 1887. Another resignation was that of Dr J P Williams-Freeman who had given 39 years of service. Although disposing of his practice an association with the hospital would continue through his appointment to the consulting medical staff.
Dr Ernest Farr, the hospital’s Chairman, had been a widower since the sudden death of his wife Ann in 1917. In 1929 there were congratulations to Dr Farr and to matron, Miss Emery, on the occasion of their marriage. The new matron appointed was Miss M H Roberts who had previously been matron at the Holme Valley Memorial Hospital in Huddersfield. An extra sister was also employed for the maternity wing.
An important and improving institution
Only a score of subscribers attended the AGM in 1930 causing the Andover Advertiser to comment that the hospital’s efficiency mitigated against a large attendance. However, it is perhaps an indication of the hospital’s importance to the community that on Christmas Day 1929 many of the town’s most noteworthy people spent their afternoon at the hospital. The electrically lit Christmas tree carried around 50 presents, donated by local tradespeople, which the mayoress distributed, and the local branch of TOC H provided a programme of entertainment. The afternoon ended with the singing of the National Anthem.
One of the improvements in 1929 was the introduction of a superannuation scheme to which the hospital and the nursing staff contributed. It was considered ‘an excellent idea and one that had been taken up by all the best hospitals’.
During the year Edward Maufe was engaged to design a new casualty and pathological laboratory wing for the hospital. On the ground floor it provided a consulting room for doctors, a pathological laboratory and a theatre for accident cases, massage treatment, ante-natal and other examinations. Upstairs were two sitting rooms, one for nurses and another for sisters, who would then be away from the main building and could use their ‘loudspeakers’ without risk of waking night nurses who were off duty. The plans were approved early in 1930. Beale & Sons of Andover were appointed the builders and the new block was completed and paid for within the year. Pathology work in the new well equipped laboratory was done by Lt Col W F M Loughnan. In later years he would be succeeded by Lt Col J B A Wigmore then by Lt Col R A Hepple, and afterwards in 1944 by Dr Wrigley of Winchester. Miss N M Edney Hayter was appointed as masseuse, providing treatments on three afternoons a week and her time was fully occupied. Some of her patients had previously had to pay out of their slender incomes to go to Winchester three times a week.
In 1930 Sir Alfred Herbert made another generous donation to the hospital. He gave £1,000 to endow a bed in memory of his second wife, Lady Florence Herbert, who died that year. Before marrying him she had been matron of the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital of which Alfred Herbert was the chairman for many years.
In 1931 more equipment was purchased. A Keepalite system of emergency batteries was installed to remove any danger from the failure of the electric light in the theatre and maternity wards. A Potter Bucky Diaphragm was purchased to improve the clarity of X-rays. The device, which prevented the scattering of rays by body tissue, had by this time become standard equipment on X-ray tables. Another adaptation to changing times was an alteration to the road entrance to the hospital and at the AGM it was noted that ‘the improvement for those driving cars is very marked’.
King George V had been in poor health for some years. After a period of convalescence near Bognor in 1929 he had been troubled by a shoulder ailment and had been treated using diathermy. This was a deep tissue electrical heat treatment which, by that time, was available in London hospitals. In 1932 gifts from Mr H J Horn and another anonymous donor allowed the Andover’s War Memorial Hospital to purchase diathermy apparatus for its outpatients block.
Meeting a growing need
By 1932 Andover was a rapidly growing town. The committee recognised that an extension to the general wards would soon be necessary and that they needed to build a strong reserve fund to finance the work. In presenting the annual report to the AGM in March 1933 Mr Parsons explained that in order to increase funding the contributory scheme would be advertised in the local picture houses and he believed the appeal would take the form of a ‘talkie’.
The next stage of the hospital’s development was marked by changes in the membership of the hospital committee and its senior staff; in March 1933 ill health prevented Dr Ernest Farr from continuing as the hospital’s chairman and Mr E J Beaumont Nesbitt was elected to the role. Shortly afterwards, Mr Edmund Parsons was unable to continue in his dual role as honorary secretary and treasurer and these positions were filled by Mr L H Kendall and Mr H J Humber respectively. It was recognised by everyone that Andover and the hospital owed Edward Parsons a debt of gratitude that they could never repay. Miss E G Hazlett succeeded Miss H M Roberts as matron and local doctor Dr Margaret B Savory was appointed honorary anaesthetist to the hospital.
During 1933 the need for an extension became pressing. There were sometimes more patients than the hospital could properly accommodate and doctors were compelled to send patients to Winchester. There was also a need for more nurses and accommodation for them. The plans were drawn up by Edward Maufe and Leslie Moore were agreed but all the necessary funding was not yet in place. Some members of the committee wanted to delay in order to avoid an overdraft but a motion was carried to start the work. The balance of the funding needed was secured by the time the work was completed.
Plan of hospital showing the pre-1948 extensions
In February 1935 Dr Ernest Farr died and one of his last acts was to recommend to the hospital the purchase of gas apparatus which was greatly needed and ‘would lessen the sufferings of people on whom operations had been performed’. A memorial fund to him was set up and the money raised subsequently became a Samaritan Fund for the hospital. Oxygen-ether equipment was purchased that year.
On 6 May 1935 the county celebrated the Silver Jubilee of King George V and on 20 May the hospital officially opened its new Silver Jubilee Block. The ceremony was performed by Lady ‘Nina’ Herbert who deputised at short notice for her husband, Sir Alfred Herbert, who was unwell. The new accommodation provided a male and female ward, each of four beds, two small single wards for serious cases and four staff bedrooms on the upper floor. It wasn’t long before it showed how necessary it had been and the committee was pleasantly surprised that its running costs proved less than anticipated.
Changing times
In 1929 the Local Government Act abolished the poor law unions. It placed responsibility for their hospitals with the county councils and required those councils to consult with the voluntary hospitals about future provision of accommodation and how it would be used. At the AGM in 1931 Mr Parsons explained that he was a member of the committee set up by the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, ready to go into the question of hospital accommodation in the county, when the county council was prepared to meet them.
Throughout the inter-war years there was on-going debate at a national and regional level about the future organisation and relationship between voluntary and local authority hospitals. The hospital participated through its membership of British Hospitals Association. By the late 1930s some areas of agreement were emerging but the demands of the coming war would change everything.
Changing times were also evident in August 1935 when Mr H J Humber died and Mr F L Shrimpton took over as treasurer. He soon had to deal with a new item of expenditure prompted by a recent high court case. A visitor to London hospital had slipped, fractured his thigh and been awarded substantial damages against the hospital authorities. The committee decided to insure against such risks and asked members of the medical staff to cover themselves individually in that respect. But it would be 1937 before all legal liabilities were fully covered and patients or their relatives were asked to sign a form of consent to operations before they were performed.
The hospital also introduced new services. Many people needed ophthalmic treatment and Mr Balfour Barrow was appointed ophthalmic surgeon, starting a regular clinic in March 1936 that would continue until 1939.
The hospital was in a strong financial position and, helped by several generous bequests, it was able to make a lot of repairs and improvements during 1936. New appliances and fittings were purchased for the operating theatre to keep it as up-to-date as possible and an extra sitting room for staff was built over the X-ray room. There was extensive redecoration, flooring was upgraded and additional seating was purchased for the massage department. A sub-committee was appointed to report on improving lighting of the hospital. The drive was resurfaced and a garden committee appointed to make the grounds more attractive.
The management committee assured itself of the hospital’s standards by a fortnightly inspection and from 1937 this duty was shared with the general committee. A theatre sister was appointed to arrange and attend all operations, so that matron had time for her many other duties, and Sister Worthington was promoted to assistant matron. At matron’s suggestion, it was decided to invite nursing probationers to remain at the hospital for a third year at an increased salary bringing mutual benefit. From 1938 Mrs du Puy Fletcher gave a medal each year for satisfactory performance by a probationer to which was added to guineas and a certificate from the committee.
In 1938 further improvements were carried out in the administration of anaesthetics in the theatre. An application was made for one of Lord Nuffield’s ‘iron lungs’, an inexpensive artificial breathing machine mainly used in the treatment of paralytic poliomyelitis. Lord Nuffield was manufacturing these at his Morris car factory near Oxford and had offered to donate one to every hospital in the British Commonwealth that asked for one. Arrangements were also considered for providing blood transfusions but these techniques were still very new and would make swift advances in the coming war.
By now, the possibility of war was becoming much stronger. In April 1937 the government had started the creation of an Air Raid Wardens’ Service and local authorities began the development of details local air raid precaution (ARP) schemes. Mr Shrimpton represented the hospital in the Borough of Andover’s work on ARP planning.
The hospital in wartime
In September 1938 came the Munich crisis. War was becoming increasingly likely and preparations began to protect the hospital and its inmates against air raids. A trench was dug but ‘fortunately the committee were able to postpone most of the work’ and the trench was used temporarily as a potato store. However, by 1939 preparations had become essential and the hospital took precautions against fire, practiced fire drills and purchased stirrup pumps. The building was sand-bagged and prepared for black-out.
Preparations on a wider scale were also advanced. The hospital was included in the government’s Emergency Hospital Scheme for the district centred on Southampton. Large numbers of civilian casualties were expected from air raids, especially from ports like Southampton, and hospitals had to be prepared to take casualties from other areas if hospitals were damaged or could not cope. Andover was asked to be prepared to provide 38 extra beds.
One bright point in 1939 was the Andover Carnival with Sister Worthington a most popular and successful carnival queen. Then, in September 1939 came the declaration of war. The expected air attacks did not immediately materialise. Andover was temporarily released from the Emergency Hospital Scheme but nevertheless the mayoress organised working parties to provide the hospital with a large supply of emergency bandages and linen. Also, a number of auxiliary nurses were trained at the hospital. But in May 1940, German troops marched into the Low Countries and onwards into France.
The war was in a critical state and the hospital returned to the Emergency Hospital Scheme. The Jubilee Block was kept free for emergencies and the hospital was designated as a casualty clearing station where, in the event of raids, patients would be sorted and moved on to other hospitals or to their homes. Dr Hodgson was appointed casualty disposals officer and would make these decisions. Acceptance of normal maternity cases and maternity benefit under the Contributory Scheme was stopped and the use of diathermy apparatus discontinued under the Deference Regulations. The linen league ceased to function and the hospital employed a sewing maid to assist with necessary repairs.
German air raids and the Battle of Britain started in July 1940. On 13 August 1940 Hitler launched ‘Adler Tag’ or ‘Eagle Day’ which was the start of the Luftwaffe’s mass formation attacks intended to knock out the RAF. One of the airfields attacked that day was RAF Andover and during the raid a bomb fell near the hospital, breaking windows and damaging tiles of the roof. This prompted the installation of wire netting and ventilated shutters on the windows of the wards. Emergency stocks of dressings and supplies were moved to storage away from the hospital and an additional source of water supply was secured by agreement with the owner of the adjacent bungalow ‘Northfield’. The hospital’s equipment was augmented by the purchase of a blood transfusion outfit, a theatre trolley and a flow meter, and the American Red Cross donated a nasal mask for the administration of anaesthetics. An oil heater was purchased to ensure adequate emergency heating for the theatre.
During the subsequent months of the Blitz, the hospital was never required to take casualties under the Emergency Hospital Scheme. A reduction in the scale of bombing after May 1941 allowed it to be taken out of the scheme in December 1941, but the threat from the air had not gone away and there was still fear of gas attack. Plans provided for medical staff to report to the hospital in the event of air raid casualties and, in a grave emergency, a resuscitation team was available from Winchester. Stretch-bearers would be provided by the borough ARP controller and a squad of lady volunteers was ready to undertake the gas decontamination of stretcher cases.
However, the biggest problem facing the hospital in 1942 was the impossibility of securing adequate domestic staff. One consequence was that the system of private wards was stopped and these wards were only used when privacy was essential for a patient. At the end of the year, the annual report recorded that ‘the committee cannot sufficiently thank all those who, under very great difficulties, have worked for the successful maintenance of the hospital during the last year. Only those connected with the management can appreciate how great those difficulties have been.’
Since the start of the war, the whole of Itchen Secondary School had been billeted in Andover and was sharing school premises with Andover Grammar School. In 1942 there was a donation from Itchen School and another from its pupils and staff in memory of Colin R Hopkin who had died whilst in Andover aged only 14.
During 1943 the hospital was able to undertake some essential maintenance including the installation of a new hot water furnace. The Jubilee Block was re-opened and two maternity beds made available. Staffing was an almost continuous problem but considerable voluntary helps was given in the cooking of meals. Wartime conditions still posed difficulties for the supply of basic services and the hospital purchased a chlorinator for its emergency water supply and Aladdin lamps for emergency lighting.
By 1944 Britain was still at war, but the threat of invasion of had gone. The hospital committee was still struggling with acute staffing difficulties, both for domestic and nursing staff, and was very appreciative of help given by the British Red Cross and St John Organisation. But, for the future, the hospital’s most pressing need was for more maternity accommodation. To provide a site for this new accommodation, the bungalow ‘Northfield’ adjoining the hospital was purchased.
The architects Collcutt & Hamp were engaged to design the new department, which provided 20 beds, staff accommodation and everything to meet all the latest requirements. It would require considerable outlay but the committee was sure that the expenditure would soon be justified. However, these plans would be overtaken by events and the additional maternity accommodation subsequently built was not the Collcutt & Hamp design.
The end of life as a voluntary hospital
The hospital’s financial position allowed it to plan for the future with confidence. Wartime conditions had reduced its income, raised its costs and created additional expenses not fully reimbursed by the government but, nevertheless, its finances were still in good shape. This was far from typical as the finances of most voluntary hospitals had been poor before the war and were now in a very bad state.
Alongside voluntary hospitals were the hospitals run by local authorities which had once been poor law infirmaries. In many places, these had become good municipal hospitals but in many more places little had been done to upgrade them and they provided poor quality care. There was also discontent about national health insurance provision, partly because of the panel system for GPs but also because many people were excluded – women if they were not wage earners, young people under sixteen and the elderly who were economically inactive.
In 1944 the Coalition Government published a White Paper, A National Health Service, proposing comprehensive free medical provision run by local authorities with voluntary hospitals as contractors for specific services. But with the change of government in 1945 came a different plan. The National Health Service Act passed in 1946 brought all hospitals under national control with a regional framework. Andover War Memorial Hospital was one of the 1,334 voluntary hospitals in England and Wales taken into public ownership. On the appointed day, 5 July 1948, it started a new life as part of the National Health Service.
Erica Tinsley
Chair of Andover History and Archaeology Society
Reproduced with the kind permission of Andover History and Archaeology Society
http://www.andover-history.org.uk/
