England's first state hospitals and the Metropolitan Asylums Board, 1867-1930 / by Gwendoline M. Ayers.

  • Ayers, Gwendoline M.
Date:
1971
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: England's first state hospitals and the Metropolitan Asylums Board, 1867-1930 / by Gwendoline M. Ayers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ported the initiative of the Lancet and followed with another committee of enquiry, which included Drs. Anstie and Griffin.1 In January 1866, Drs. Hart, Anstie and Rogers met to plan a means of mobilizing public support for their reform campaign. They convened an open meeting on 3 March 1866, with the Earl of Carnarvon in the chair. Supporters, rallied by the convenors, included eminent men of both political parties and such well-known figures as Charles Dickens and John Stuart Mill. 'The Association for the Improvement of the Infirmaries of London Workhouses' was formally established and the reforms at which it aimed were discussed. These had been outlined already by Dr. Hart in an article published in the Fortnightly Review in December 1865.2 They included the provision of six Poor Law hospitals in London of one thousand beds each; the re-classification and re-housing of the workhouse population; and the grouping of all the metropolitan poor law districts into one hospital region which would collectively bear the cost of the sick poor. The meeting finally re- solved that a deputation be sent to the President of the Poor Law Board to determine his willingness to introduce a suitable Bill. If he resisted, it was recommended that the Associ- ation should 'take independent means to bring forward an appropriate measure in Parliament during the present session'.3 Dr. Hart elaborated the London reform scheme in a further article in the Fortnightly Review* and, as part of the campaign, published the collected Lancet reports in one volume.5 Appended, was a brief statement over the names of seven leading medical men, including the President of the Royal College of Physicians, Sir Thomas Watson. Drafted by Hart and Anstie, who had solicited the signatures, this recapitulated the reforms already advocated, in particular, 'consolidated infirmaries', with trained nurses, resident medical officers, and medicines financed from the rates.6 Meantime, Miss Nightingale had been working on similar lines. She was intent on pressing for immediate legislation for the fundamental reorganization of workhouse administration. Dubious concerning Mr. Villiers' capacity to carry it through, she approached the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, family friend of her early days. He promised that, if she would draft a Bill, he would use his influence to get it through the Cabinet. She discussed her scheme with Dr. John Sutherland, old associate of the Crimean Sanitary Commission,? and began to work with Mr. Farnall. But before she was able to submit her plan to Lord Palmerston he become ill, and in October 1865 he died. This was a cruel blow. Up to now, her hopes had been rising, as replies to the questionnaires coming in from the workhouse authorities consistently revealed deficiencies which even the Poor Law Board could not ignore. 'So long,' she wrote, 'as a sick man, woman or child is 1 BMJ, 1865,1, p. 601; 1865, II, pp. 158-59, 486-88. 2 Ernest Hart, 'The Condition of our State Hospitals', Fortnightly Review, III (Dec. 1865), pp. 218-21. 3 The Times, 5 March 1866, p. 7. , .. . 4 Ernest Hart, 'Metropolitan Infirmaries for the Pauper Sick', Fortnightly Review, IV (April 1866), P?'s6R^p02rt of the Lancet Sanitary Commission for Investigating the State of the Infirmaries of Workhouses, 1866. 6 BMJ, 1867, I, p. 175- , , 7 Sir Edward Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale (1913), vol. II, pp. 133-34-