PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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The Maudlyn was a leper house and it was located well out of the Town, on the brow of North Hill, allegedly where the old Blind Institution building stands. It was referred to in the fourteenth century and again in the Chantry Rolls of 1547, when it reputedly held fourteen inmates. It seems to have disappeared around the time of the Siege of Plymouth during the Civil War, when maps show a fort on the site. It is mentioned in the report of a sale of land in 1648, when the land being sold to Mr John Martyn was stated as being 'neere the late howse called the mawdlyn howse, neere Plymouth'. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were two institutions that were called hospitals but which did not care for the sick and wounded in the modern sense. The Hospital of the Poor's Portion was founded in 1589 for the relief of the poor and is consequently regarded today as a workhouse. Likewise, the Hospital of the Orphans Aid, founded in 1617, was really an orphanage. In fact it was the Admiralty who provided the first true hospital accommodation in the area but that was, of course, for sick and wounded seamen only. An old hulk, the "Canterbury", was moored in the Hamoaze. but when it was full the men were sent ashore into any building that was available, often in the same place as pigs and horses. Eventually, in 1744, the Navy Board petitioned the King to allow them to construct proper hospitals at Portsmouth, Chatham and Plymouth. RNH Haslar, at Portsmouth, was duly opened in 1753 and three years later land was purchased for what became the Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse. But Plymouth (well, Plymouth Dock really) was not just a naval town: it also had a great many soldiers billeted in the area. During the Napoleonic Wars the casualties were brought home to Frankfort and Millbay Barracks. Like the Navy, some men were placed in any empty buildings that could be found. There were so many casualties that the military authorities if some could be held in the Naval Hospital. Typical of what today we would call "silo thinking", the Admiralty refused to have anything to do with caring for soldiers. As a result the military also acquired land, but on the northern shore of Stonehouse Creek, in Stoke Damerel, where in 1797 they opened their own Royal Military Hospital. In the meantime, in 1794, the Plymouth Medical Society had been founded with the intention of providing medical aid to the industrious poor of the Town. The use of the word "industrious" was deliberate: the Society did not support paupers. In November 1798 the Plymouth Public Dispensary opened its doors at the Mayoralty House in Woolster Street. Although the Dispensary moved to larger accommodation in 1799, it was quickly realised that it would be beneficial to have their own purpose-built building and in 1804 a large garden in Catherine Street was purchased with that purpose in mind. The new Plymouth Public Dispensary was opened in 1809. It still stands today, although in other use. Naturally Plymouth Dock had to have a similar establishment and this, known as the Dock and Stonehouse Public Dispensary, was founded in 1815. Doctor John Butter conceived the idea of a hospital to treat eye diseases but found a great deal of local opposition. However, eventually, on December 25th 1821, the Plymouth Eye Dispensary was opened in a house in Cornwall Street, Plymouth. In 1823 it changed its name to the Plymouth Eye Infirmary and in 1828, thanks to royal patronage. it became the Plymouth Royal Eye Infirmary. Doctor Butter was to remain its physician for 32 years. In 1832 Plymouth suffered an outbreak of cholera, the severity of which reinforced the need to establish a hospital in which people could be treated without the need for them to stay at home and further spread the disease. Some land was purchased in Notte Street and there the original South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital and Plymouth Public Dispensary was erected. The latter part of the title was soon dropped and the Dispensary continued to operate on its own. The Hospital opened in January 1840. It was extended several times until it eventually could accommodate over 100 patients. When the cholera again struck the area in 1849 a temporary hospital was erected at Battery Hill, Stonehouse, and the Devonport Mechanics' Institute was also used for the same purpose. In September 1884 the patients of the South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital were transferred to a new purpose-built building at Greenbank. The Admiralty intended to erect a hospital for the service population in Devonport and as the South Devon & East Cornwall Hospital in Plymouth declined to be connected with the project, Mr Thomas Woollcombe took the matter further. Given the rather grand title of "The Royal Albert Hospital and Eye Infirmary and Children's Ward for Devonport, Stonehouse, Cornwall and West Devon", (it only had ten beds!) it was instituted in March 1861 and work started in March the following year. It opened in 1863. Cholera once again hit the Plymouth area in 1866 and the Royal Navy vessel "HMS Pique" was rented to Plymouth Borough Council as a hospital ship. She was moored in Plymouth Sound off Jennycliff and was followed in later years by the sailing ship "Maud" and then "HMS Flamingo", which was withdrawn and sold in 1928. Homeopathic medicine had been practised in Plymouth since the 1850s. A dispensary was opened in 1870 and such was the demand that it had to move to larger premises in 1878. It moved again in 1884 to a 10-bed hospital cum dispensary from which some 4,000 home visits were carried out in 1889 in addition to the 9,000 patients treated at the dispensary. Finally in 1893 the premises in Lockyer Street were purchased and converted into a hospital, which, in 1919, became known as the Devon and Cornwall Homeopathic and General Hospital. The hospital ships were to some extent replaced by isolation hospitals. The Industrial Training Ship "Mount Edgcumbe" took over a house at Ernesettle for their isolation hospital while Plymouth Town Council opened theirs at Mount Gould. It was felt that the surrounding trees would be enough to shelter anybody living outside the site from the diseases. A temporary wooden hospital was erected in 1885 but this was followed in 1897 by more substantial buildings. Plymouth's first nursing home, "Woodside", was opened in July 1891. Following the passing of the Lunacy Act in 1890, the Plymouth Borough Asylum was opened in October 1891 at Blackadon, in the parish of Ugborough, to the east of Plymouth. It was not until around 1948 that it acquired the name of Moorhaven Hospital. When the Devonport Borough Isolation Hospital was opened sometime around 1893, it really was isolated. However, as the Hospital extended so too did the housing and in 1955 it was renamed the Scott Hospital, after local hero, Sir Robert Falcon Scott. Mr Edwin Alonzo Pearn left his home, "Compton Leigh", and the land surrounding it, in he parish of Eggbuckland, plus a large endowment to fund the erection and maintenance of the Pearn Convalescent Home, which was opened in 1895. One of the biggest health scares at the beginning of the twentieth century was tuberculosis, known as TB. In 1911 all local authorities had to take over responsibility for the treatment of this disease, providing facilities for examination of likely carriers and organising treatment. Plymouth took over the premises that had been vacated by the City Museum, Beaumont House, and re-opened it as a TB dispensary in connection with Mount Gould Isolation Hospital, Didworthy Sanatorium, at South Brent, and Udell Tor, at Yelverton. After the War it became a Chest Clinic, dealing with asthma, bronchitis and cancer until this function was transferred to Freedom Fields Hospital in 1988. During the Great War the 4th Southern General Territorial Army were ordered to open temporary hospitals in the Plymouth area and they took over Salisbury Road School, Hyde Park School, and Ford Workhouse. Devonport Higher Elementary School and Camel's Head School were also used as temporary hospitals. In 1916 the Alexandra Nursing Home was opened at Number 1 St Michael's Terrace, Stoke. By 1935 it had extended its title to the Alexandra Maternity Nursing Home for Soldiers', Sailors' and Air Force Families. The care of children was of the utmost importance during the Great War and in 1917 a children's hostel was opened at Trefusis House, Laira, for the shelter and care of children whose mothers were too ill to look after them themselves. The Devon and Cornwall (Ex-Service) Tuberculosis Colony was an open-air hospital formed for the benefit of service men and their families who had contracted tuberculosis (TB) during the Great War (1914-18). It was opened in July 1924 and was situated out in what was then the wilds of Efford, overlooking the river Plym. Upon the workhouse system ceasing in 1930, the old Plymouth Workhouse at Greenbank, by then known as the Greenbank Infirmary, became the City Hospital. Shortly after the inauguration of the National Health Service in 1951 it became known as Freedom Fields Hospital. Following the air raids on Plymouth in March and April 1941, it was clear that something had to be done to safeguard young mothers and their newly born children. As a result, Plymouth City Council secured the use of Flete House in the parish of Holbeton, in the wonderful South Devon countryside, as a maternity hospital. It seems to have closed in around 1952/53. The Manadon Field Hospital was built in 1943 when the American Army descended on the area in force to prepare for the D-Day landings. In just two months they constructed a 250-bed hospital on land that had previously been used by an archery club. It was opened in February 1944 but closed after the ending of hostilities the following year. In 1948 the Army relinquished the former Military Families' Hospital in Raglan Barracks and this first became a tuberculosis unit and then, in 1957, the Devonport Maternity Home. It was as early the 1940s when Plymouth City Council had the idea of erecting a hospital on the Derriford House estate, to the north of the City. But it was not until 1973 that the first turf was cut and conducted tours were being around the new building in 1980. Derriford Hospital opened unexpectedly sometime around February 27th 1981 when a boiler broke down at Plympton's Gables Hospital and patients had to be transferred out in a hurry. It was officially opened in June 1981. St Luke's Hospice was founded in January 1982 at Plymstock, Plymouth, and was so much in demand that in 1998 it had to transfer to larger premises at Turnchapel, overlooking Mount Batten and the sea.
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