Tottenham Fever Hospital
With much discussion in recent weeks about the issues surrounding parents’
failure to have their children vaccinated against measles, I thought it would
be interesting to pen a short piece about my mum’s own experience of serious
childhood illness in the 1940s, and of being admitted twice to what was in
those days the Tottenham Fever Hospital.
Diphtheria spread significantly
during late 19th century with industrialisation and urban
overcrowding and soon took its place as one of the main causes of child death.
Class and privilege were no barrier to its ravages. Queen Victoria’s daughter,
Princess Alice, died of the disease in 1878, aged 35.
The North Eastern Fever Hospital
was opened by the Metropolitan Asylums Board on 8 October 1892 in St Ann’s
Road, Tottenham to treat patients suffering from fever and diphtheria. Built in
just seven weeks on land once owned by Clerkenwell Abbey and later the Knights
of St John, the hospital originally had 50 buildings housing 500 beds.
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| Admin building of the Tottenham Fever Hospital |
It was to have been the last of a series to be built
for the Board, covering the geographical points of London - the first being the
North Western in Hampstead (1870), followed by the South Western (1871), the
Eastern (1871), the Western (1877), the South Eastern (1877) and the Northern
(1887).
At first, however, the Local Government Board vetoed
its £12,000 purchase price. But then two years later London experienced a huge
outbreak of scarlet fever and existing fever hospitals were unable to cope,
despite the erection of temporary huts in their grounds. To avoid sick patients
having to be turned away, the Board relented and agreed to financing of the new
hospital. Local
residents were vehemently opposed to the building, fearing that the infectious
diseases would spread outside the hospital precincts, but building went ahead
and the hospital opened in October 1892.
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| View of a new ward added in 1935 |
The complex comprised 50 temporary wooden huts
connected by a covered walkway, with 24 of these buildings used as wards. Each ward hut contained a sanitary room, a
bathroom, a scullery and pantry, and a linen closet. Another 13 huts provided
staff accommodation and the remaining 13 were used for administrative offices
and the utilities - the kitchens, laundry and storerooms. More huts were added
in 1893 and the boundary wall was built in 1896.
During the First World
War, the hospital was placed at the disposal of the US military authorities and
became the American Expeditionary Force Base Hospital No.29. The names of
patients, along with their ship names or battalion troop numbers, can still be
seen on the walls of the blocks.
Following the liquidation of The Metropolitan Asylum Board in 1929, the Tottenham
hospital then came under the administration of London County Council before
becoming an NHS institution in 1946. In the immediate post war period the fever
hospital was redeveloped, including the construction of an ambulance
station and a row of prefabricated bungalows. By 1950, the hospital had been
renamed St Ann’s General Hospital and treated patients with chest disorders of
all kinds as well as infectious diseases.
Londoner Pat August recalls her experiences
of being an in-patient at the Tottenham Fever Hospital (for children only),
once in 1941 at the age of seven with measles, and again aged twelve (1946)
suffering from diphtheria.
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| Pat August aged 12 |
During her first stay, she remembers lying
in bed listening to the bombing raids over the city and the nurses moving the
children to lie on mattresses underneath their beds when things got really bad.
“There was lots of screaming, as we hated this”, she remembers. Pat always
remembers the date as 1941 because she remembers a nurse running onto the ward screaming “the Balkans
have fallen”, a fact of particular personal relevance as she was herself from
the Balkan region. To Pat, however, the mystery of what a Balkan was remained
unsolved for many a year – she was, after all, only a small child! She spent
two weeks in the hospital on that first occasion, it being essential during
wartime to prevent a measles epidemic which would have been the consequence of
infected patients being allowed down into packed air-raid shelters (in Pat’s
case Leicester Square tube).
Pat was admitted to
the hospital again in 1946 (at age 12), suffering this time from diphtheria.
Her memories of that time are still vivid: “I remember that I had to sleep bolt
upright, we weren’t allowed to lie flat for a good few weeks. We were kept in
strict isolation from the outside world, so my mum couldn’t visit.” Pat also
recalls the nurses being quite brusque with the children, and the regime on the
ward very strict – there were no toys or other comforts to make life more
tolerable. The seriousness of the disease meant that inevitably some children
on the ward died. “I remember thinking it might be my turn next...” recalls Pat,“...my prognosis must
have been pretty grim because the Reverend Mother at my convent school (St
Aloysius, Somers Town) arranged for a mass to be said for me!”
Pat was never
immunised. In common with many other parents at time, her father was extremely
resistant to the idea. When a mass immunisation programme was introduced in
1942 the authorities recognised the suspicions some parents held about the
procedure by making it voluntary. When coverage remained below expectations, however,
they embarked on a massive advertising campaign. By the end of the war, rates
of killer childhood diseases had dropped dramatically (by 1949 mortality had
fallen more than tenfold from pre-war levels) and the profile of vaccination
had received a significant boost. By the 1950s, whooping cough and polio
vaccines were introduced. By the 70s, measles and tetanus jabs were routine.
St Ann’s Hospital is
still operational today and, despite the disadvantages of the site (its origins
as a fever hospital mean the buildings are spread out, with patients having to
navigate over a wide area), a variety of medical services are located there, including
mental health in-patient and day-care services provided by the Barnet Enfield
and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust. Some of the buildings from 1901 survive.
The outside wall is original Victorian as are the two
gabled lodges either side of the gates, and the porter’s lodge.
References:
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