Friends of Wandsworth Common — Autumn Heritage Talks
The Lives and Times of Bolingbroke Hospital
September 2024
Welcome again to the first of our Autumn Heritage talks. I'm delighted to welcome back Sue Demont, who is a mainstay of our Heritage Group within the Friends, and also former chair of the Battersea Society Heritage Group. Sue is going to talk to us about Bolingbroke Hospital on Bolingbroke Grove — the history of that institution and its building. The talk will be roughly 45 minutes, followed by time for questions and answers.
Thank you very much, Stephen. Lovely to see you all — thank you for turning out on a fairly dingy evening, and it's great to have a full house at NatureScope. This talk is slightly different from some of my previous ones because it links up with my original research interest. When I completed my PhD some thirty years ago it was on the life and times of Aneurin Bevan, founder of the NHS — and here I am, to my great joy, delving into the research about Bolingbroke Hospital, which lived through that momentous period in the 1940s when we transferred from private healthcare arrangements to a state system.
Like so much in the Battersea and Wandsworth area, the Bolingbroke Hospital owes its existence to Canon John Erskine Clark — so much more than just a vicar. He was instrumental in founding a variety of institutions as well as churches across Battersea Borough, and he was responsible for kickstarting the Bolingbroke Hospital. He is remembered as a large, buoyant man, tremendously active in all walks of life. His family motto was Fortiter Ubique — boldly everywhere.
In 1876 he oversaw the purchase of Bolingbroke House, one of the five houses of Bolingbroke Grove. He raised £45,000 to purchase the house, which was then leased to the hospital managers as soon as they were appointed. The site was already being used for what they called a Provident Dispensary — a sort of cross between a pharmacy and an outpatients provision — but Clark had correctly identified that there was room on the site to accommodate inpatients as well.
The hospital opened in Bolingbroke House, built in 1776 — a lovely Georgian manor house in a very sylvan setting, with its eastern side looking down to the Falcon Brook. Was it a suitable site? In many ways, yes: an excellent environment, much healthier than some other areas of London; a good solid building that ultimately lasted over 160 years; and there was room on the site to expand. However, it was already well over a hundred years old when the hospital opened, and a little tricky to adapt, having been set up as a private house rather than a hospital.
Although the conversion was quite rudimentary, it had its upsides. There is a lovely vignette about a teenage inpatient in the 1900s who recalled what a homely atmosphere there was in one of the small wards, because the nurses used to kneel down to make toast on the open fire — which gave a pleasingly domestic touch.
The formal designation of the hospital was the Bolingbroke Self-Supporting Hospital — essentially a small general hospital, opening with just 30 beds. It caused some excitement in medical circles because it was seen as a significant social experiment. It aimed to provide affordable pay beds for that group in society who were not rich enough to have private nursing care in their homes, yet who absolutely could not countenance going into a workhouse infirmary, with little provision in between. Erskine Clark, who was very good at spotting gaps in markets, identified that the lower middle classes would pay something towards their care, provided it was affordable.
The early patients did indeed struggle to pay the whole of their care, but they were all able to pay something. They included clerks and low-paid clerical workers, a commercial agent, a journalist, a music master, upper servants, and a labourer — plus two outliers: a gamekeeper (the area still being quite in touch with its rural origins) and a South African ostrich farmer, whose origins remain a mystery.
The hospital made the most of its location. One of the strap-lines in its publicity material described Wandsworth Common as one of the most healthful and extensive commons in London — and the proximity of the common gave the Bolingbroke a real head start over other London hospitals. The Battersea General Hospital did not open until 1902, and that was in the heart of downtown industrial Battersea. A visitor in the 1890s commented specifically on the spacious, airy rooms and the excellent ventilation.
It should be pointed out, however, that not everyone was welcome. Those with infectious or contagious diseases, mental illness, epilepsy, or maternity complications were not admitted, nor were the so-called "incurables" — a horrible word covering a multitude of conditions. One great advantage from an early stage, however, was the treatment of accident victims, who were treated free from the 1880s onwards. This was a particular boon in this heavily industrialised area, where accidents on the railways, in the gasworks, and in the chemical works were all too common.
It was not all plain sailing in the early years. It took ten years for even a small surplus to be realised; for most of the first decade the hospital was not covering its costs. One very significant moment came with the appointment of the first resident medical superintendent, Dr Cecil Lehr, an expert in electrotherapeutics and radiology. He was so successful in his pioneering work that he was also appointed medical officer in the electrical department of the Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia — but he continued to work at Bolingbroke throughout his career until his untimely death in 1920.
Financial crises were resolved in two ways: the first by mortgaging Bolingbroke House; the second through the intervention of Mr Thomas Bryant, Vice President of the Royal College of Surgeons. He agreed to take on all operations — having a very eminent surgeon on board attracted a great deal of business — and also brought his own private list of patients with him, giving real cachet to the institution. Another eminent surgeon, Zachary Cope, later knighted for his contributions to surgery and textbook writing, also carried out operations at Bolingbroke for a period.
By the 1920s the hospital had grown considerably, though there was always a large imbalance between inpatients and outpatients — understandably so, though the enormous gap does owe a good deal to workplace accident attendances.
The hospital showed considerable ambition in its development. In 1901 the board commissioned the eminent firm of architects Young and Hall, who specialised in hospital architecture, to draw up plans for a complete rebuild. The total scheme was never realised, but new buildings were soon appearing. The Victoria Wing — today the Bolingbroke Medical Centre, still in medical use — was founded for outpatients who had previously had to queue outdoors in all weathers. The press referred to it as a Harley Street for the poor. Five years later came the Canon Erskine Clarke Wing: a three-storey ward block fronting onto Bolingbroke Grove, containing Nightingale Wards of around fourteen beds each, an operating theatre, a mortuary, and an airing ground on the roof for both patients and staff.
None of this could happen without a great deal of auxiliary fundraising. There were all sorts of campaigns and events: a Ye Olde English Fayre at the Battersea Town Hall; a performance of Julius Caesar featuring the son of John Burns MP; and an exclusively working men's performance at the Shakespeare Theatre that raised £35 through penny subscription alone. Local sports teams were involved too, notably the Heathfield Cricket Club, which once played a memorable match against the music hall star Dan Leno, whose team — called the Dainties — turned out dressed as police officers.
At the other end of the scale, the hospital benefited from donations from the very wealthy: the Wey family gave over £1,000 to London hospitals, of which the Bolingbroke received a good share. The League of Friends, which started life as the Linen League — focused on sheets and pillowcases — became far more ambitious over time, and by the 1950s and 60s was raising thousands of pounds annually for training and additional facilities.
The Edwardian period had been a real time of expansion and innovation, but the First World War brought everything to a halt. The hospital's position was exacerbated by its proximity to the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building, which was converted into London's Third General Hospital during the war. As the nearest permanent hospital to the Patriotic, Bolingbroke had to reserve beds for military casualties — twenty to begin with, rising to twenty-five by 1917. Given that it was then a thirty- to forty-bed hospital, that was a very large proportion of available beds.
One positive side-effect of the war was the employment of women doctors at the Bolingbroke for the first time. The good news is that they were appointed and allowed to practise; the bad news is that they were paid only half what the male doctors received. The matron set a remarkable example of personal bravery by going to the Western Front to organise a military hospital there, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross for her services. Dr Lehr and surgeon Mr Charles Riley were subsequently awarded CBEs, partly for their wartime service.
After the war the hospital enjoyed roughly twenty years of fairly settled development. The Battersea Borough Council, by now very proud of the Bolingbroke, described it in their 1929 gazetteer as this splendid house of healing which caters for the wants of over half a million people — referring to the combined populations of Battersea and Wandsworth, plus patients from further afield.
The doyen figures of the hospital's early days were passing. Dr Lehr died of excessive exposure to unguarded X-rays in the course of his work. He is commemorated in the preserved chapel of the demolished Middlesex Hospital, and also on the international Monument to X-ray and Radium Martyrs of All Nations in Hamburg, dedicated to all those doctors who died through exposure to radiation in pioneering research. Sir Charles Riley was knighted for his contributions to cancer services and surgery in general.
The next major phase of building was the William Shepherd Wing, with foundation work beginning in 1925 and the wing opening in 1927. The board again called upon Young and Hall, the original architects — which helps to explain why, although the hospital was built in five or six different stages, it presents quite a coherent appearance. The opening ceremony was presided over by the Lady Mayoress of London and was an all-female occasion — quite unusual, though perhaps explicable by the fact that the centrepiece was a brand new children's ward.
The Shepherd Wing is probably the most iconic part of the hospital. The stair tower is a real local landmark, and the wing is characterised by a particularly innovative feature: all the wards on the first and second floors have balconies opening directly outward, so that beds on wheels could be pushed outside for patients to enjoy fresh air. There was a real vogue for fresh-air treatment in the 1930s, but the Shepherd Wing was already doing it in 1927.
The children's ward was named after its benefactor, Lady Ann Carmichael, who had also donated two houses in Bolingbroke Grove — numbers 80 and 81 — to serve as nurses' homes. The ward is particularly noted for its extraordinary nursery rhyme tiles: Royal Doulton tiles depicting fairy-tale scenes in a very distinctive and somewhat sinister style. Tom Tom the Piper's Son is being pursued by a butcher with a meat cleaver; Humpty Dumpty is about to have his head cracked beyond repair; and even Mary appears to be telling her little lamb off. The most celebrated tile is the Hickory Dickory Dock one, which features a real clock that still works — and was completely on time when we visited.
Remarkably, the tiles have survived war damage and everything else, and remain intact today in what is now the school library of the Brook Academy. The children still look at them, have their favourites, and are aware they have something rather special. It was the nurses themselves who paid for the tiles: Lady Ann Carmichael had donated the ward, and the nurses raised the money for the decoration as their own contribution. James and Lady Carmichael are buried in Wandsworth Cemetery, where a rather wonderful 1930s gravestone marks their resting place.
The last significant phase of building was the 1936 administration block: a new entrance hall and administration wing. English Heritage has listed parts of the building on account of the octagonal marble-clad lobby, the war memorial, and the radiating corridors — which are, as they note, unusually lavish. Much of the marble is genuine, and the rest is a very convincing imitation. The war memorial within the lobby is a rather lovely art deco interpretation of the eternal flame, established to commemorate the fallen of Battersea in the First World War; it now includes the Second World War and subsequent conflicts, and a remembrance service is held there every year.
Symbolically, the completion of this block coincided with the demolition of the original Bolingbroke House. The building had survived 160 years, but by the late 1930s it was causing more problems than it was solving, hemmed in on all sides by later wings. The buildings added after the Second World War were functional rather than architecturally significant: a new X-ray department, storerooms, and a mortuary.
The hospital's final years were difficult. Increasingly focused on elderly patients, and with the main concern being how to get patients in and out safely in the event of a fire, it was always going to end in closure. The service was gradually reduced — fewer and fewer inpatients, surgery virtually ceased — and a spirited local campaign to save it was ultimately unsuccessful. The Secretary of State Alan Johnson approved the closure. A year later the buildings were listed at Grade II, which ensured they could not be demolished and that any new occupant would have to respect the harmony of the whole site.
In 2012 the Brook Academy opened on the site. Its motto is Fortiter Ubique — the very same motto as Canon John Erskine Clark. He has left his mark on the building in more ways than one.
An audience member who had worked at Springfield in the late 1980s and 90s recalled that the geriatrician Peter Millard had introduced personalised panels in the long-stay ward — patients could choose what wallpaper they wanted on their own panel — which helped to reduce the institutional feel of the space.
Another audience member recalled seeing the tiles featured on a BBC television programme about the history of British ceramics, having had no idea they existed despite living nearby. Sue confirmed that there is quite a lot of information about them online.
Q: What services were still available in the hospital's final years?
A: The beds were steadily reduced, and anyone with a long-term illness — unless very elderly — would be directed elsewhere. Operating had virtually ceased. By the end it was primarily blood tests, X-rays, and minor procedures such as ingrown toenails.
Q: Were there maternity services at the hospital?
A: No. There was, however, a separate Battersea Maternity Hospital also in Bolingbroke Grove, from 1921 until 1939, which provided Battersea's maternity provision. Before and after that period, maternity complications were referred elsewhere.
Q: Which part of the hospital was hit by a V1 in 1944?
A: Sue did not have that detail to hand but undertook to find out. Remarkably, no one was killed in the incident despite considerable structural damage.
Q: Which parts of the building are specifically protected, and how does this affect the school?
A: The entrance hall, marble surrounds, war memorial, offices, and corridors are described in detail in the listing. English Heritage also makes much of the coherence of the Young and Hall buildings massed together on the site, so any development that damages that overall perspective is unlikely to be permitted. Running a school in a listed building is genuinely complicated — heating systems, room layouts, and roofing all have to be managed within significant constraints.
Q: Were there child inpatients from the very beginning?
A: Yes — there was an infants ward certainly from the 1900s, with one of the Shakespeare Theatre fundraising events specifically to support it. The Lady Ann Carmichael Ward in the Shepherd Wing superseded that earlier provision.
A plaque unveiling is planned for the home of Tom Taylor, the playwright who lived in Lavender Sweep House. Taylor wrote Our American Cousin — the play Abraham Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated — and his house was visited by many eminent Victorians, including Dickens, Thackeray, Ellen Terry, and Clara Schumann. The unveiling will be performed by Lord Frederick Ponsonby and will include readings by Alan Armstrong. The event takes place on Saturday at 2pm outside 84 Lavender Sweep.
The remaining Autumn talks are as follows: in October, Greg Ramsbottom will speak about the Craig telescope; on the 11th of November, Philip Boyswill talk about the Third London General Hospital at the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building during the First World War; and in December there will be a presentation on the lost houses of Burntwood Lane.