In 1949 The Lancet published one of its most influential and forward-thinking editorials in modern medicine, highlighting the fact that there was a structural healthcare problem involving the plight of old people and was one of the biggest and most embarrassing problems facing the NHS.
Does this sound familiar?
Not wanting to delve into the various poor law reformations from Tudor times right up to the start of the NHS, what we do know is that as diets became better, water supplies cleaner, sanitation improved and so did general health.
This meant people were living longer than ever and in need of publicly funded end-of-life-care.
Alongside poor law institutions, or workhouses, there were also cottage hospitals and a recent enquiry to the Northampton General Hospital’s Museum and Archive regarding the Pitsford hospitals required research.
[caption id="attachment_6360" align="aligncenter" width="980"] Pitsford House[/caption] The late Victorian cottage hospital system depended on business investment from philanthropists establishing family medical trusts from their accumulation of wealth.
They were run as small voluntary hospitals and there were two such hospitals in the relatively small village of Pitsford.
One was Pitsford House, established by Philip Manfield whose family had made a fortune in shoemaking, and the other funded by Pickering Phipps.
This well-known Northampton brewer was of the third generation of a family of brewers and his family expanded across central England and owned the largest pub estate in the Midlands and the ninth largest in Britain with 242 tied public houses by 1905.
Pickering Phipps was a non-conformist and believed that charity was his moral duty and so at his death (childless) in 1937 he bequeathed his Pitsford property to local people to set up as a cottage hospital for the elderly of the county.
It was originally called ‘Stone House’ and became renowned for the work it did with the aged in the Midlands.
Pitsford’s two famous hospitals became well known in the national press, enhanced by the local presence of the Royal family.
Two children of George V, Prince Edward (King Edward Vlll, then Duke of Windsor after his abdication) and the Duke of York (King George Vl), spent their weekends at Pitsford Hall at the invitation of Captain George Henry Drummond, hunting with the Pytchley Hunt on a regular basis from the 1920s to 1940s.
Royal patronage attracted favourable publicity for Pitsford.
In 1941, Middlesex County Council decided to evacuate all elderly patients out of London.
Middlesex Hospital was made a priority as it couldn’t cope with its higher civilian casualty admissions, dealing with the evacuation from Dunkirk and the Blitz of 1940-41 in substandard Victorian infirmary and workhouse buildings.
It was decided that Middlesex County Council should lease a number of cottage hospitals in the Midlands to which they could transfer their aging patients in need of longer-term care to release much needed bed space.
Their women went to Stone House (the Phipps brewery bequest) now renamed Middlesex House, and the sick men to Pitsford House (the Manfield shoe bequest).
Pitsford Hospital was run by Matron Lloyd and accommodated 77 beds, Middlesex House had 60 beds and was run by Matron Hosford.
Royal patronage by Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother, from 1938 meant that the cottage hospitals were the focus of considerable local, regional and national interest.
During the war these homes were purchased by Middlesex County Council, transferred to a Management Committee in 1947and then the newly formed NHS in 1948 oversaw the co-ordination of State, Local Government and Voluntary Hospitals.
It was mentioned in the Northampton Mercury and Herald on 18 August 1948, under the title ‘Pitsford Homes Cheer the Sick and Elderly’, that their investigating reporter had found that the renowned hospitals provided a very high standard of geriatric care.
The NHS was underfunded from the very start and it is noted in the NGH Annual Report of 1952 that financial savings would have to take place.
It was decided that both Pitsford hospitals would be run by one matron, Miss Hosford.
The beautiful grounds and gardens of both houses (and Manfield Hospital) needed considerable upkeep, which became difficult to maintain as the number of gardeners had to be reduced, so unfortunately the inherited peach trees and grape vines could no longer be cultivated.
The Pitsford cottage hospitals closed in 1978 and by 2000 all geriatric hospital care had been transferred to the newly built Centre of Elderly Medicine at NGH.
As the NGH Museum and Archive is unable to open to the public at the moment because of Covid measures, we are working on various projects to enhance our collection and have become very aware of a gap in our history during WW2.
If anyone has stories or photos relevant to the hospital or health care in Northamptonshire during this time, we would love to hear from you.
Julia Corps.
Volunteer at the NGH Museum and Historical Archive.
(Museum and Archive e-mail: [email protected])