PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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If you were desperately ill with an infection disease, the last thing you would want is to be rushed to Plymouth's waterside in Mr Charlie Lewis's horse-drawn ambulance, manhandled on to a boat and rowed, slowly, out into the Sound to be again manhandled on to a ship bobbing about in Jennycliff Bay. But that was what would have happened to you from 1866 to 1929, when Plymouth's isolation hospitals were old ships. The first vessel used for this purpose was HMS Pique. She had been a 5th rate ship of the line, launched at Devonport Dockyard in July 1834. She had a distinguished naval career before being loaned to the Borough authorities in 1866 for use as a hospital ship during an outbreak of cholera. It clearly worked, for within a short while she was handed back to the Admiralty again. However, in 1871 there was a bad epidemic of smallpox and resources on shore were again severely strained and the Pique was once again pressed into service. Infected seamen were transferred direct on to the ship without even touching land. The situation got so bad that the Plymouth Board of Guardians, who were responsible for dealing with this matter, decided to purchase their own vessel for use as a floating hospital. They purchased a full-rigged sailing ship called the Maud. She had been especially built for carrying timber from America and Canada to Britain, having special ports cut into her hull for loading large baulks of timber. She was one of a small fleet owned by a Mr Bannerman. More commonly known as 'the fever ship', the Maud was moored off Jennycliff. The watchman aboard at that time was Mr G Foster. Two nurses were provided by the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital, a Nurse Robbins and a Nurse Adams being amongst them. One stormy, November night, the Maud broke from her moorings and drifted towards the eastern end of the Breakwater. Luckily the Coastguards spotted her, and when the patients awoke the following morning, they found her being towed back into position by tugs on either side. Exactly when the Maud ceased to be used is unclear. The late R V Walling claimed in an article published in 1966 that in 1882 the Port of Plymouth Sanitary Authority secured the permanent use of HMS Pique and that after being re-fitted in the Dockyard, she was moved to Jennycliff Bay in that same year. That would be clear if it were not for the fact that there is a reference to the Maud and Mr Foster, the watchman, in the Plymouth Council minutes for 1903. Were both ships used for a while? Certainly there was a big plague scare in 1901. The Pique became unserviceable in 1910 and she was replaced by HMS Flamingo, a smaller, naval sloop that had been launched at Devonport in 1876. She had been paid off in 1891 and was attached to HMS Defiance, the torpedo school ship, as a store ship for coal and water. She was converted into a ten-bed ward, with two additional single rooms. Ten more beds could be provided at short notice. On March 22nd 1910, she was towed out from Cattedown Wharf to the Pique's old mooring in Jennycliff Bay. By 1926 the state of the Flamingo had become a cause for concern but nothing was done about it until September 1928, when the Sanitary Authority decided that in future all infectious diseases would be dealt with at the new Lee Mill Isolation Hospital. The Flamingo was put up for sale and eventually towed into Sutton Harbour, where she was broken up by Messrs Demelweek and Redding. It was found that her timbers were, in fact, almost as good as new. The Maud survived well into the new century as well and was apparently broken up at Salcombe in south Devon.
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