NINETY YEARS OF SERVICE

HISTORY OF SOUTHAMPTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL 1884-1974

By David A.J. Williamson.

M.D. ,F.R.C.P. ,D.C.H.

Honorary Consultant Paediatrician

April 1990

CONTENTS

Foreword

I. Preface

II,“Voluntary” Days.

III.In the N,H.S.

IV,Special Departments.

V. Staff,

VI.League of Friends.

VII.Paediatrics in Wessex.

VIII. Memories.

IX. The Last Lap.

Appendix I. Hospital Staff.

Appendix II. The Work Load,

Analysis of Admissions and Deaths for the Year 1931

FORWARD

by

I.C.S.Normand. D.M. ,F.R.C.P.

Professor of Child Health.

David Williamson’s fascinating account of Southampton Children’s Hospital will be a source of nostalgia for all who knew or worked at Winchester Road but it is far from being just a nostalgic memoir. To many it may come as a surprise to learn how Southampton for so long has kept in the forefront of ideas and practice in the care of sick children. Above all we read a story of extraordinary professional devotion and commitment from a staff of minuscule size by modern standards but who, because of their common ideals, achieved so much for their small patients with such limited resource behind them.

It is now fifteen years since the Children’s Hospital closed but the tale of continuing expansion and innovation in services has not changed. In particular the Children’s Unit increasingly functions as a tertiary and research centre as befits its position as the only University hospital along the South Coast. Inevitably some of the intimacy has gone but there still remains a real sense of the happy family bound together in its pursuit of excellence for the care of sick children.

We must all be grateful for the care and labour David Williamson has put into this volume that provides us with such fine examples of service over ninety years.

PREFACE

When my successor, Dr Chris Rolles, suggested that I should write a short history of the old Southampton Children’s Hospital while there were still some of us about who could remember the place, I agreed with some misgivings, knowing the fallibility of my own and, I suspected, other peoples memories. It did however seem important to try to record something about the place, of which I, for one, had so many happy memories and which was typical of many similar institutions of it’s period.

This booklet falls naturally into two unequal halves, divided by the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948, For the first section I have had to rely very largely on documentary evidence while for the second I have called upon my own and other people’s memories and I am most grateful to the very large number of persons who have helped me in this respect. A letter to the ‘Echo’ produced an excellent response from many ex-staff and patients. I am particularly grateful to those of my colleagues who have supplied me with contributions about their own departments. I would specially like to record my debt to the late Mr Norman McKeith who not only gave me some fascinating insight into the working of the hospital in the thirties, but also undertook some individual research for me. The current officers in the Health Service locally have been most helpful but sadly I have to record that the Service as a whole seems to have little regard for historical material. A great many quite basic documents have apparently been destroyed though a few remain in the District offices and some are preserved in the City Archives, I am most grateful to Mr E.J. Ives who lent me his own copies of the Annual Reports of the H.M.C. and to Miss M.A. Mulady for supplying me with a complete set of Children’s Hospital Annual reports which had come down to her via the nursing hierarchy, Both have been invaluable.

I have also received a large number of photographs only a few of which has it been possible to reproduce here. However we intend to collect a selection of these together into an album which will be kept in the Department at the General Hospital; others together with various source documents will be deposited in the City Archives for safe keeping. I am indebted to The Southern Evening Echo for allowing me to reproduce photographs on pages 7 & 11,

I would like to record my appreciation of the help given me by Sue Jacob and others at the Department of Teaching Media at the General Hospital for’ the art work and also to The Charlotte Frances May Foundation for their generous financial support which has made the publication of this booklet possible.

“VOLUNTARY DAYS”

The first half of the nineteenth century saw the founding of children’s hospitals in most of the big cities on the continent of Europe from St Petersburg to Constantinople. Curiously, Britain lagged somewhat behind. With the exception of the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women in 1816 and the Manchester Hospital for Children in 1829 most of our children’s hospitals were founded in the second half of the century. The Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, which opened in 1852, was quickly followed by similar hospitals in most industrial cities in the country but it was not until July 1884 that the Shirley Children’s Hospital and Dispensary for Women was founded.

The objective was to provide a service for the people of Shirley and neighbouring parishes and thus to relieve the pressure on the South Hants and Southampton Hospital which already had a children’s ward. The original provision was “for the treatment of children suffering from any disease not of an infectious character as In and Out patients, and of women suffering from diseases peculiar to their sex as Out patients”. In 1888 the last phrase was modified to “all women suffering from disease irrespective of its nature” while ten years later the net was extended still further to include “old men of 60 years of age and upwards as Out patients”. The prime mover of the Shirley hospital’s foundation was a Dr C.G. Beaumont a general practitioner in Shirley. He was supported by the local vicar, the Rev A.D Burton, who became the first chairman of the Managing Committee and Mr Andrew Barlow a local philanthropist who provided valuable financial help. Members of the Barlow family featured as strong supporters of the hospital for many years. The first Hon. Treasurer was Commissary-General W.L.M. Young C.B. of 56 Winchester Road and the first Hon. Secretary, Captain Murton. The all male Managing Committee consisted of a further nine local worthies.

The original Medical Staff consisted of Dr Beaumont and Dr E.J. Chamberlain L.R.C.P. both local practioners living nearby. The consultants were Dr W Maclean C.B., M.D. Consulting Physician and Mr T. Longmore C.B., F.R.C.S.(Later Surgeon General Sir Thomas Longmore), Consulting Surgeon. Both were on the staff of the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley being Inspector General of Military Medicine and Professor of Surgery in the Army Medical School respectively. The R.V.H. at Netley with 1200 beds had been founded in 1866 and was the medical headquarters of the army, including the Army Medical School. It is probable that the services of these consultants were obtained by Commissary-General Young who was also on the staff of the R.V.H. Mr J. McLachlan who commanded the Garrison Artillery was the surgeon dentist. The connection with the R.V.H. had lapsed by the turn of the century.

The first home of the hospital was a pleasantly situated little white house at 38, Church Street Shirley, next to the Wesleyan Chapel, which was rented for £38.10s.10d per year. At that time Shirley was still a country village three miles from Southampton. The hospital provided four beds for children as well as the out-patient facilities mentioned above. The number of beds was increased to six after a period and later to seven. The hospital was run by the Lady Superintendent who was supported by another nurse, a maid and a part-time charwoman.

In 1887 a Ladies committee was set up. Members of the committee would make weekly, later monthly, visits to the hospital and liaise with the matron passing on her requests to the Managing Committee. During its first eleven months there were only 25 in-patients (13 boys and 12 girls) admitted to the hospital. Their diagnoses were listed as follows:

Medical. Surgical. Bronchitis. Acute rheumatism. Fracture of thigh. Lupoid ulcer of Croup. Chronic rheumatism. Dislocation of face. Ophthalmia, Paralysis. elbow. Hip joint Dyspepsia. Cataract. disease. Typhoid fever. Scalds. Necrosis. Dysenteric diarrhoea. Burns. Rheumatoid Cystitis. Abscess. arthritis. Contracted tendon.

All the medical cases are described as ‘cured’ but two of the surgical were only ‘improved’ and three were still in hospital. In addition 217 children and 37 women attended out-patients having a total attendance of 1597 and there were also more than 60 dental cases.

Thereafter most, but not all, of the Annual Reports of the Managing Committee give details of the cases admitted together with the number of out-patients treated. In analysing these statistics (Table I) it is often difficult to be sure of the true nature of the diagnoses stated. (Table II). It is also difficult to know if there was any form of clinical selection.

TABLE 1 - Average Number of Admissions per Annum. Period 1884-1908 1909-17 1927-36 1884-1908 1909-17 Diagnosis Age TB, 5 9 10 Rheumatism 2 10 15 Nephritis - 1 4 Under 1 year 3 2 Respiratory 6 8 47 1-4 years 23 8 D&V - 2 12 5-9 years 26 34 Other infection 2 1 9 10+ years 12 11 Malnutrition 5 6 15

Ophthalmia 1 -

Accidents 4 5 46 Length of Stay. Abscess 5 6 20 Under 2 weeks 29 20 Surgical (Hot) 7 11 23 2-4 weeks 12 26 Surgical (Cold) - - 54 1-3 months 17 30 Ts&As 20 27 413 Over 3 months 3 1 Other E.N.T. - 3 94 Orthopaedic 4 6 22 Other inc. Skins 5 10 62

Table 2 - In-patients Treated during 1899-1900 NO SEX AGE ADMITTED DISCHARGED DISEASE. RESULT 1 M 8 years May 2nd July 4th Eczema Cured 2 M 6 years June 17th July 12th Pneumonia Cured 3 F 4 years June 18th July 16th Injury to leg Cured 4 M 2 years June 20th Aug 2nd Debility Cured 5 M 6 years July 9th July 18th Circumcision Cured 6 M 4 years July 23rd Aug 1st Circumcision Cured 7 F 6 years July 27th Aug 13th Abcess of the neck Cured 8 M 12 years July 30th Aug 14th Adenoids and enlarged tonsils Cured 9 F 3 years July 31st Sept 15th Phthisis Improved 10 F 4 years Aug 2nd Aug 18th Adenoids and enlarged tonsils Cured 11 M 9 years Aug 9th Oct 9th Typhoid Cured 12 M 7 months Aug 10th Aug 25th Diarrhoea and sickness Cured 13 F 5 years Aug 14th Sept 28th Fractured femur Cured 14 F 3 years Aug 16th Oct 29th Rachitis Improved 15 M 1½ years Aug 18th Sept 3rd Diarrhoea and sickness Cured 16 M 12 years Aug 20th Oct 20th Hip joint disease Improved 17 F 9 years Aug 24th Oct 5th Consumption Cured 18 F 9 years Sept 2nd Oct 9th Bright’s disease Cured 19 M 6 years Sept 14th Oct 8th Axilliary abcess Cured 20 F 3 years Oct 6th Oct 29th Adenoids and enlarged tonsils Cured 21 F 5 years Oct 9th Nov 19th Enteric fever Cured 22 M 7 years Oct 10th Oct 15th Circumcision Cured 23 F 12 years Oct 17th Oct 31st Adenoids and enlarged tonsils Cured 24 M 12 years Oct 20th Jan 17th Hip joint disease Improved 25 M 11 months Nov 17th Nov 30th Bronchitis Cured 26 M 9 months Nov 18th Dec 1st Diarrhoea and sickness Cured 27 F 11 years Nov 20th Jan 10th Typhoid and pneumonia Cured 28 F 6 years Nov 28th Jan 27th Chorea and burns Improved 29 F 3 years Nov 29th Dec 12th Adenoids and enlarged tonsils Cured 30 F 8 years Nov 30th Feb 27th Fractured femur Cured 31 M 1 year Dec 5th Jan 4th Burns Cured 32 F 5 years Dec 5th Jan 6th Influenza Cured 33 F 13 years Jan 3rd Mch 25th Boriasis Cured 34 F 12 years Jan 22nd Mch 8th Debility Improved 35 M 4 years Feb 14th Mch 22nd Rachitis Improved 36 F 10 years Mch 14th May 30th Emaciation Improved 37 F 3 years Mch 17th Mch 24th Adenoids and enlarged tonsils Cured 38 F 12 years Mch 26th May 26th Psoriasis Cured 39 F 2 years Mch 28th Apr 28th Rachitis 40 F 3 years Mch 29th Apr 30th Bronchitis and pneumonia Cured 41 F 13 years Mch 29th Apr 19th Chronic meningitis No improvement 42 F 4 years April 1st Apr 24th Bronchitis and pneumonia Cured 43 M 10 years April 14th Apr 26th Debility Improved 44 F 6 years May 17th May 23rd Adenoids Cured 45 M 1 year May 18th June 3rd Bronchitis Cured 46 M 13 years May 18th June 16th Hip joint disease Improved 47 M 7 years May 23rd June 18th Injury to leg Cured 48 F 6 years May 24th June 10th Ganglion of ankle Cured 49 M 3 years June 5th June 18th Pneumonia Cured 50 F 7 years June 8th June 16th Adenoids Cured

The Infant Mortality rate in Southampton was well over 100 per 1000 births and remained so until World War I and the death rate for children under 5 was also over 100. Even as late as the 1930s the Medical Officer of Health reported that 36% of the children were undernourished, The main causes of death in childhood appear to have been gastro-enteritis, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria and whooping cough. Although the rules of the hospital forbade the admission of infectious cases, several such are listed including diphtheria, scarlet fever and gonorrhoea. The Isolation Hospital was not opened until 1900 although previously there was a small hospital on West Quay and a hulk moored in the river off Freemantle which admitted infectious cases. Whether these included children is not known. The South Hants and Southampton Hospital had a children’s ward which in 1893 admitted 150 children under 13 compared with only 42 at the Shirley Hospital

During the first twenty years the number of admissions remained relatively stable at around 50 cases per annum. (Appendix II.) Thereafter the numbers began to rise partly due to the rapid rise in the local population and to the increased number of beds but also to the growing popularity of tonsillectomy, starting with 7 cases in 1899 and peaking at 606 in 1931, At first these children stayed in for nearly two weeks but by 1914 their stay had come down to about two days. The first operation for acute appendicitis was in 1910, The indications for the admission of a sick child to hospital at that time are not very clear: one might have expected more cases of acute respiratory infection but without oxygen or antibiotics there was perhaps little advantage in hospitalisation. Out-patients were held twice weekly at first being increased to three per week in 1904,

The hospital was, of course, funded entirely by voluntary contributions and the records for the early years show continual problems with threats of enforced closure from time to time. The first year’s income was only about £200 while the maintenance costs were £244. These included salaries and wages at £1.3s.0d per week, provisions £1.7s.0d per week and medicine 7/6d per week. The main source of funding was from subscriptions, donations and a few legacies. Subscribers of 5/- and donors of £1 were entitled to one ‘letter of introduction’ available for the ‘bona-fide poor’ only. Patients had to provide their own clean linen and bottles for medicines.

Obviously,with money as tight as it was, every donation was important and was carefully recorded. In addition to financial donations supporters made gifts in kind. ‘Pound Days’ too, where members of the public were invited to give a lb of any suitable product e.g. groceries, were popular from an early date.

LIST OF GIFTS 1890 Freeborn, Mrs ...... Books, Old Linen LIST OF GIFTS RECEIVED ON POUND DAY. Freemantle Gospel Mission...... Flowers, Fruit and Vegetables Gale, Mrs ...... Vegetables, Apples. Grapes, Flowers, Figs, Oranges Geffcken, Mrs...... Bottles Andrews, Mrs...... Potatoes Good, Mrs ...... Gooseberries Andrews, Mrs R...... Tapioca Griffiths, Mrs ...... Toys and Dolls’ House Hans, Mrs ...... Port Wine Barker, Mrs...... Oatmeal Harman, Mrs ...... Flannel, Toys. Jelly, Flowers. Cake, Butter, Flannel Bailey, Mrs...... Demerara, Sifted Sugar and Soap Vests, Jersey Jacket Hay, Mrs Herbs, ...... Lettuce, Pictoral Papers, Magazines, Vegetables, Barter, Mr ...... Tapioca, Flowers Flowers, Peaches, Two Sets of Sheets, Quilt, Bottles, Bartron, Mr ...... Bacon, Biscuits, Stewing Pears Flannel, Roses, Jug, Sweets, Flannel Sheets Brown, Mrs ...... Tea, Sugar Mrs Hay’s Maid ...... Toys Bush, Mrs ...... Rice Herbert, Mrs ...... Cakes, Sweets, Eggs, Fowls, Christmas Tree Buttermer, Mrs ...... Sugar, Sago Hopcroft, Mrs ...... Cakes, Biscuits, Oranges, Hot Cross Buns Butcher, Mrs ...... Tea, Sago Harvest Festival (per Mr Dunlop) ...... Flowers, Fruit, Vegetables Isted, Mrs ...... Toys and Jugs Jacob, Mrs...... Clothes Rail, Plants, Christmas Cards Cook, Mrs ...... Tapioca Ledhams, Mrs and Miss Weekly ...... Gift of Flowers Collins, Mrs Grosett ...... Cocoa Lees, Miss ...... Flowers Cox, Mrs ...... Oatmeal, Linseed meal Leveson, Mrs (per Mrs Hay) ...... New Nightdresses Coxwell, Miss ...... Tapioca, Rice Lillingston, Mrs Innes ...... Grapes Curtis, Mrs ...... Tea, Sago Lomer, Mrs ...... Fruit, Flowers, Three New Flannel Dressing Gowns, Oranges, Grapes, Jam, Cake Lomer, Miss Pearlie ...... Doll Dacre, Mr ...... Groats, Tea, Barley Mansell, Captain, R.N...... Pictoral Papers, Books Dacre, Miss ...... Sugar Mansfield, Mrs ...... Old Linen Dashper, Miss ...... Tea Mark, Mrs ...... Flannel Dressing Gown Davidson, Mrs ...... Tapioca Martin, Miss Biscuits, ...... Sponge Cakes, Scrap Book, Dolls, Picture Frames, Devenish, Miss...... Bacon, Sifted Sugar Night Socks, Oranges May, Mrs ...... Biscuits Dommett, Mrs...... Butter, Sugar Matoss, Mrs ...... Flowers, Cakes,Oranges, Apples, Almanac, Bon-Bons McQuhae, Mrs ...... Grapes, Sponge Cakes Franks, Mrs ...... Rice, Tapioca, Tea Muyer, Mrs (per Mrs Hay) ...... Two Large Scrap Books Murton, Mrs Dolls,...... Handkerchief, Knitted Cuffs Gale, Mrs ...... Tea, Coffee Newnham, Mrs ...... Vegetables, Raspberries, Flannel Jacket Gilbert, Misses ...... Jam, Butter, Biscuits Ollivier, Mrs ...... Toys, Petticoat, Cuffs, Cake Oram, Mrs ...... Potatoes, Beans Gordon, Miss ...... Jam, Oatmeal Payne, Mr ...... Papers Phillips, Miss ...... Scrap Book Harman, Mrs ...... Soap, Candles Pullen, Rev ...... Flowers Hay, Mrs ...... 12lb. Sugar, 12lb. Oatmeal Randall, Mrs ...... Lemon Squeezer Hicks, Mr ...... Soap, Flour, Sugar Reeves, ...... Mrs Cake Hopcroft, Mrs ...... Biscuits, Sago Richards, Mrs ...... Cake Richards, Miss Elsie ...... Flowers, Cake, Oranges, Biscuits Hunt, Miss ...... Soap, Tea, Rice, Figs Scott, Mrs ...... Flowers, Cooking Apparatus, Jam, Rhubarb (weekly), Plants Ings, Mrs ...... Apples, Jam Scovell, Mrs ...... Cake, Bath, Jam, Jelly, Oranges and Sweets Pound Day Gifts 1894 Some of the gifts received in 1890 In 1903 there was a donation of £5 to renew all the house linen. Mrs Milne Stewart established the Linen League in 1910. The members of this group undertook to provide all the linen and clothing required by the hospital. A local draper offered special prices for certain items e.g. “Red Flannel Jackets for children of 3 to 18 years— Flannel at 1/6d per yard”. In 1891 some minor alterations and additions were made to the building but on the following year the hospital went through a difficult period following “a constant change of matrons and several untoward circumstances”. At this time also, Dr Beaumont left to be replaced by his partner, Dr W.G. Collins. He was joined in 1895 by Dr R.D.H. Gwillim and Dr Howard Saunders; both became consultants after a few years. The latter later recalled his first operation, a tracheostomy on a child with diphtheria performed with the aid of a candle-lit reading light held by a nurse. In 1899 for the first time the Hon. Treasurer was able to announce that he had cash in hand at the end of the year. In its first fifteen years the hospital had treated nearly 700 in- patients and 5000 outpatients but it remained a very small institution. Southampton was expanding fast and was engulfing the village of Shirley. There was strong pressure for increased accommodation at the hospital. So in 1900, in spite of continuing financial difficulties, it was decided to establish a Building Fund to be used either to enlarge the existing house or to purchase a more suitable building for the hospital. In 1911 the original house was purchased for £574 and alterations estimated to cost £1000 were proposed.

However in 1912 the Managing Committee received an option to purchase Anglesea House in Winchester Road for £1000 so the plans to enlarge the house in Church Street were abandoned and the move to Anglesea House agreed. The house which had been the home of Mr Crowther Smith one of the original members of the Managing Committee required very little modification in the first place to provide ten beds. An appeal was made for furniture and ‘The Shirley Children’s Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Aged Men’ was opened by Mrs Henderson on September 26th 1912 at an informal ceremony and blessed by the Vicar of Shirley while the Band of the Borough Police played “admirable selections” in the grounds. The original house in Church Street was sold to the Liberal Club for £500.

Prior to 1913 it had been the practice to close the hospital for six weeks each summer for the matron’s holiday during which time the building could be cleaned; however in that year the closure was for two weeks only and after that it was agreed that the practice should cease and a fully qualified sister be engaged to cover the period. However the wards were subsequently closed on several occasions in the following years on account of infections such as German measles, measles and erysipelas.

Further development had to be suspended during World War 1 but the work of the hospital continued as before. Rising prices and an overdrawn bank balance caused much concern. There was increasing difficulty in recruiting nurses and salaries had to be increased. Several of the medical staff were called up and were difficult to replace. Food rationing was introduced in 1918, twelve persons being registered as resident at the hospital. Matron’s Christmas party was reduced to a small tea party for in- patients and a few out-patients.

In May 1919 the medical staff proposed that the hospital should be enlarged by converting the existing waiting room and doctors room into an additional ward. It was soon shown however that it would be more economical to build a new single storey wing to house outpatients and some extra beds and it was proposed to install electric lighting. There was also a suggestion that provision should be made for maternity cases but this was not agreed. Another suggestion was made that the Vicarage next door should he purchased but this proposal was not acted on for twenty years. At this time a large legacy from the late Mr J.F.Obree became available so it was decided to add a 15 bed ward above the proposed new O.P.s at a total cost of £1631. The New Obree Wing was opened by H.R.H.Princess Beatrice, Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter, who had become Patroness in 1920. She remained Patroness until her death in 1944. At Dr Saunders suggestion the title of the hospital was changed from The ‘Shirley’.... to The ‘Southampton’ Children’s Hospital and Dispensary for Women.

With the doctors returning to civilian life there were moves towards increased specialisation. In 1919 Dr Stewart started an E.N.T. department and two G.P.s were appointed as Hon. Anaesthetist. In 1921 a new Out-patient department for the treatment of skin diseases was set up under Dr Saunders and a Massage Department was added in charge of an Honorary Masseuse. It was suggested that some second hand X-ray equipment should be purchased but this was deemed to be too expensive and, as two other institutions in the town had such equipment, unnecessary. A ‘five wire house telephone’ was donated in 1924.

Mr Walter Purvis joined the medical staff as Hon. Surgeon to replace Mr Nelson who had died and Dr Seager Thomas became the first Honorary Pathologist. The E.N.T. department became increasingly busy and Mr Norman MacKeith took over from Mr Stewart in 1926. The remainder of medical staff were still G.P.s practicing within about a mile of the hospital. The first resident medical officer, Dr Laurel Heny, was appointed in 1929.

The inter-war period saw a marked increase in the number of cases treated. In the period 1920-1930 there was a five fold increase in the number of children admitted while the number of out-patients trebled. No longer did children come mainly from Shirley and adjacent perishes but the catchment area now included the whole of Southampton and increasingly from places further afield. However the main cause for this increase was undoubtedly the growing popularity of adeno- tonsillectomy; this operation and other E.N.T. cases accounted for 76.9% of surgical admissions. There was also a greater diversity in the types of the other cases treated. (Table IIl). There was an increasing amount of ‘cold” surgery with cases being admitted for radical cure of hernia, undescended testis, phimosis (circumcision).etc while on the “hot” side there was a steady flow of appendicitis and small numbers of intusussception and pyloric stenosis many of whom died. The other common causes of death were pneumonia, meningitis, gastro enteritis and prematurity. Considerable use was made of local convalescent homes particularly that at Testwood which closed in 1928.

To be admitted, a patient now required not only a referral letter from his panel doctor but also two introductory letters which would last for one month though an O.P. attendance needed only one letter. A subscriber had at his disposal one such letter for every 10/6d subscribed. The unfortunate parents would have to hunt around for a patron with letters to spare before their child could be treated. However emergencies and accidents were treated without question. No charges were made and a suggestion that 2/6d be charged for a dental gas was firmly turned down. The rules at this time stated that “Only women and children of those parents who are unable from want of means or other urgent cause, to be suitably treated elsewhere and who after medical examination are shown to be in need of treatment are to be admitted as patients”. One subscriber complained to the committee that a child whose father earned £7 per week should not have been treated at the hospital.

In 1936 revised rules state that the parents of patients who could afford to do so, were to be asked to contribute towards the cost of treatment and maintenance. There was also mention of a Pay Bed ward but this does not appear to have been established. Introductory letters were no longer required.

Before the war the hospital had largely relied on subscriptions and donations for finance but with the increased size and turnover there was a need to find much more money. The Linen League continued to be very active and provided not only linen but furnishings for the new nurses’ home. Pound Days also continued. The annual Carnival and flag days were a valuable source of funds. Many of the local businesses particularly the big shipping companies gave large donations but important contributions were also made by a number of working men’s organisations notably the Southampton Tramwaymen. A ‘Penny in the Pound’ scheme whereby some employers deducted that amount from a man’s wages as a form of health insurance was introduced to be followed by other contributory schemes. Various new fund raising schemes were introduced. A Children’s League was started in 1927 whereby individual schools in the neighbourhood were encouraged to support a particular named cot. In 1928 the ‘Gugnunc’ cot was endowed. This was the first of several such cots ‘Named in Perpetuity’ each costing the donors £600. Probably the last to be endowed was the ‘Reid’ cot to commemorate Flight Sgt. John Reid who had been shot down over Germany in 1944. It is sad that all the commemorative plaques for these cots were lost when the hospital closed in 1974.

In 1925 the first part of a new nurses’ home fronting Vinery Gardens was opened thus releasing accommodation in the main building for a small ‘tonsil ward’ The remaining half of the nurses’ home together with a lecture room was completed in 1931. Further expansion took place in 1927/9 The kitchen was enlarged and linked to a new ward kitchen above by a ‘dumb waiter’. The Shirley Wing was added to the front of the building providing a new department for Massage, electrical and sunlight treatment together with X-ray on the ground floor and a 15 cot ward and sun balcony above, thus bringing the total number of cots available to 45. New provision was made for the dispensary thus freeing space for a dressings room in Out-patients. An oxygen tent was donated in 1938. In 1928 a number of ladies volunteered to provide teaching to some of the in-patients, The hospital was visited in 1929 by H.R.H. Prince of Wales who was surprised at its small size.

In it’s Jubilee Year (1934) plans were made for a very large increase in size to provide up to 100 beds; this was to be achieved in stages over a number of years. An appeal was organised for Stage 1 to raise £5000 - £6000 in order to build a new out-patients, a new theatre, a lift and to make various other improvements. Number 5 Vinery Gardens was purchased at the same time. At that time the theatre was upstairs by Ward 1, The extensions were opened the following year by the Bishop of Winchester Dr Garbett, bringing the number of beds up to 55. In 1940 Oakfield House a substantial Victorian building next door which had been the Vicarage, and later belonged to Dr H. Carter, was purchased, It was hoped that this would provide additional in-patient accommodation though in the event it was used for administrative offices and accommodation for senior nursing staff.

At the outbreak of World War 2 the children were evacuated to Lord Mayor Treloar’s Hospital at Alton but emergencies continued to be admitted though they were transferred to Alton as soon as they were fit enough to be moved. Adults were also admitted to Ward 2 but this practice ceased in 1942. The Children’s Hospital also acted as a First Aid Post and was continually manned by stretcher bearers during the Blitz on Southampton.

During the air raids patients who were fit enough were brought down to the central corridor which had been specially reinforced and put to bed on benches later to be used in Casualty. Seriously ill children had to remain in the wards up- stairs accompanied by a nurse who was issued with a ‘tin hat’ for’ her’ own protection. In the event the hospital escaped any damage in the air raids though some bombs and also an enemy aeroplane fell uncomfortably close. ln 1942 Dr Margaret Desser the R.M.O., herself a refugee from Czecho-Slovakia, and Dr K.Slaney received awards for bravery from the Ring for saving air raid casualties from the rubble of a house. However once the worst of the Blitz was over children who had been evacuated from the city began to drift home. The Hospital routine began to return towards normal and there were more admissions. The O.P. Department remained active. Clinics for women continued until 1945 although in the previous year it had been agreed to delete the words “and Dispensary for Women” from the title of the hospital. The nursing routines at this time were fairly rigid; children were bathed on admission and had daily blanket baths. There was also the routine daily ‘head round’. Wounds were dressed daily. But there was little time for nurses to amuse the children and visiting was restricted to one hour on Wednesdays and Sundays. Babies’ milk feeds were prepared in the ward kitchens where the food for the older children was also dished out. It was a very basic diet with breakfast, lunch and tea and lights out at 7 p.m. In addition to nursing duties the nurses, who were all resident, were responsible for much of the cleaning and polishing in the wards and for manning the telephone out of office hours. When the domestic was away or at weekends the nurses would have to do the washing of nappies and woollens in the little laundry next to the mortuary down the garden! The nurses were also actively involved in various forms of fund raising. A key person at this time was Mr Tee the porter/caretaker who not only took the children to the theatre but was always available for many jobs about the hospital and with his wife developed the garden to produce vegetables and kept chickens.

Clinically the types of cases admitted resembled those before the war but with the advent of sulphonamides and later penicillin the treatment of infections such as meningitis became possible. Small premature babies were still being admitted for care and those with gastro- enteritis were nursed in the side ward of Ward 2 by the ward staff.

Even before the war was over plans were being made for further developments. In 1945 Dr C,E.M. Joad, the popular “Any questions” philosopher, launched an appeal on the radio for funds which brought in £1,549 towards the proposed 25 bed ward in Oakfield and an up-dating of the X-ray Department. In 1947 proposals were put forward to enlarge the hospital to 150-200 beds to include an infectious disease unit. The physiotherapy unit was moved to the Oakfield kitchen in order to provide room for a small gastro-enteritis ward and a milk kitchen was also established.

The other major project which was suggested was the provision of a convalescent home. Various properties were considered before it was agreed to purchase Brixedone House at Bursledon for the sum of £15,750. The deal was concluded on the 26th of June 1948 just days before the inauguration of the N.H.S. This large country house with extensive out buildings and grounds overlooking the upper reaches of the Hamble River had been the home of the Thistlethwaite family before the war but had then been commandeered, first to accommodate families made homeless by the air raids and later by the Navy, who used it as quarters for W.R.N.S.

Several new appointments were made to the medical staff, Dr George Ormiston was appointed Paediatrician in February 1947. He had done much of his post-graduate training in the U.S,A. and had worked with Dr Alexis Hartmann in St Louis. He was expert in the field of water and electrolyte metabolism. Soon after his appointment he set up a new Gastro- enteritis unit on the Ground floor in what had previously been the Massage department. Dr Mary Copes who was already working in the area as a Child Psychiatrist was appointed to the Children’s hospital in 1948. The number of junior medical staff was increased to three.

IN THE NHS

The introduction of the National Health Service in 1940 brought major changes to the administration of the old Voluntary Hospitals such as the Southampton Children’s. National funding replaced the previous contributory schemes and voluntary efforts. Administration became more centralised and professional. The Children’s Hospital thus became one of the Southampton Group of hospitals, itself part of the South West Metropolitan Region whose headquarters were in Portland Place, London. At that time there were only three general children’s hospitals in the South of England outside London; Brighton, Bristol and Southampton the latter being the only one in the South West Metropolitan Region.

Our local managing authority was the Group Hospital Management Committee (H.M.C.) with Mr Frank Jennings as its secretary and chief executive officer. Each hospital had its own House Committee (in our case combined with Romsey Hospital) which took over from the old Managing committee but had decreasingly less power. Mr Bedford who had been Chairman of the old committee continued as Chairman until 1955 when he was succeeded by Professor Rayment. In his turn he was briefly followed by Dr G.Johnson of Romsey and Miss F Wright S.R.N. before Dr W. Angus a local G.P. took over the committee for many years. Medical matters were dealt with by the group Medical Advisory Committee (M.A.C.) comprising a number of hospital consultants, but it too had limited executive power. The medical staff of the hospital had our own committee which met once a month. All medical committee meetings were held out of working hours and often continued late into the night.

There were also great changes on the medical front. The previous medical staff, mostly local practitioners living nearby and supported by others with specialist status, all of whom had given their services entirely voluntarily, were gradually replaced by nearly whole time specialist consultants. Considering the magnitude of these changes they took place remarkably smoothly with very little acrimony.

Dr George Ormiston (1947) and Dr Mary Capes (1948) had both joined the staff of the hospital prior to the ‘Appointed Day’ and I was appointed Consultant Paediatrician in November 1949. Like Dr Ormiston,I had responsibilities in Winchester as well as Southampton. At that time most consultant appointments were designated “maximum part-time” i.e.9/11ths, so that we were able to have some private practice, In my case this never amounted to very much and later when it was permissible, I opted to go full time. An important feature in those days was the Domiciliary Consultation which was quite a formal affair with the G.P. nearly always present. As well as being a valuable perk for the consultant they did give him a chance to meet the G,P,s and also an opportunity for him to see the inside of the patients homes,

At the Children’s Hospital in 1950 Miss Golay was matron and there were two main wards. Ward I. Gillespie, was divided into two sections the main one in the front overlooking Winchester Rd. had beds along one side and cots along the outer and there was also the ‘balcony’, which had previously been enclosed, providing 20 beds in all. In 1951 cubicles were constructed along one side of the ward with the loss of 5 beds. At the top of the stairs opposite the ward kitchen there was a small treatment room with a side ward for skin cases next door. The poor babies with generalised eczema there were nursed naked with their limbs splinted to prevent scratching and painted all over with Gentian Violet. Next to the ward kitchen there was a two-bedded sick bay for nursing staff which later became the treatment room: a severe case of tetanus was successfully nursed there for several weeks. Nursing procedures were still quite primitive. With no Central Sterile Supply service all instruments etc had to be sterilised on the wards. Urine specimens from infants were collected by means of a glass bird feeder strapped on with ‘Elastoplast’ under the nappy.

At the back was Ward II, Obree, which accommodated 11 surgical and 12 ‘clean’ medical cases, Dr Ormiston’s small gastro-enteris ward on the ground floor with Sister Hughes in charge had six cubicles. Dr Ormiston liked to have a specimen of each baby’s stool on display in an enamel pie-dish at the foot of its cot, One nurse has complained that this put her off rice pudding for life! Dr Ormiston retained sole charge of the unit until he retired.

Ward I was presided over by Sister “Bunty” Boyce a wonderful person in the very best traditions of her profession. She would often be found still on duty late at night when one of her ‘treasures’ was in danger. She was adored by the children as well as by their parents. The whole hospital was delighted when later she was awarded an M.B.E. in recognition of her devoted service. She retired in 1966.

In 1948 12 children (900 p.a.) were still being admitted to Ward I for Ts & As on alternate days but this ceased with the opening of the children’s E.N.T. ward at the General. In the fifties infections such as poliomyelitis, congenital syphilis and tuberculosis were still quite common. There was usually at least one case of TB meningitis requiring daily intrathecal injections of streptomycin in the wards. Miliary tuberculosis too was not uncommon nor were bone and glandular T.B. due to the bovine bacillus. Although most town milk was pasteurised, this often did not apply in rural districts. Gastro-enteritis was still the dreaded complication for hospitalised infants.

In most winters there was an epidemic of acute infantile laryngo- tracheo-bronchitis. Sometimes this almost overwhelmed our facilities. Every available cot would be occupied by a wheezing baby while occasionally some had to be accommodated temporarily in odd boxes or drawers. Steam kettles and oxygen tents were everywhere. The infant’s condition could deteriorate extremely quickly and it was always difficult to decide just when to call in the E.N.T.surgeon to do a tracheostomy. One has vivid memories of Mr Alex Rusell, himself a severe asthmatic, arriving in haste at the top of the stairs by Ward I wheezing as badly as the infant he had come to treat!

Cystic fibrosis had only recently been separated off from coeliac disease and most of the cases died in infancy. The sweat test had not yet been invented. The cause of coeliac disease itself was still a mystery so that there was no effective treatment. Cases of ‘pink disease’ were still quite common. These were particularly miserable babies with characteristic itchy pink palms and soles. The condition disappeared as soon as it was shown to have been caused by mercury poisoning from so-called ‘teething powders’. Childhood diabetes was much less common than it is to-day and there were two schools of thought regarding the importance of strict dietary control.

We had very little to offer the unfortunate children with malignant disease. Those with various solid tumours had surgery and probably radiotherapy at the Royal South Hants Hospital but those with leukaemia were usually sent home with a prognosis of only a few weeks to live, often to be readmitted in their terminal phase. A development in the late fifties was the gradual appreciation of the importance of non-accidental injury to children; with hind-sight it was apparent that many such cases had been missed, sometimes being mis-diagnosed as infantile scurvy.

The streptococcal related disorders of acute nephritis and rheumatic fever were quite common. In both cases they were treated by graduated bed rest .The progress was very gradual, starting in the case of rheumatic fever, with three weeks flat on the back without pillows. After a week or so at Winchester Rd the children were transferred to Bursledon so that they could receive some schooling. The clinical progress was monitored by, among other things, a weekly R.S.R. The necessary venepuncture became quite a ritual which was accepted with remarkable stoicism by most of the children. Usually there were also several children at Bursledon with nephritis (both types I and II) and others with Still’s disease all of whom were treated with graduated bed rest. Sydenham’s chorea also was quite common. Dr Copes and I made a study in which we suggested that the disorder was not a manifestation of rheumatic disease. Fortunately we never published our results as chorea disappeared concurrently with rheumatic fever! Children with these diseases often remained at Bursledon for six months or more.

Bursledon Annexe as it was called, had been a private house. One approached it along a fine drive through park-like grounds. On entering the building one came into a very large oak panelled hall with a grand oak staircase and a fine fireplace. The hall made an excellent play area. Although the Annexe was purchased in 1948, it was only partially occupied at first, being opened fully in November 1950. On the ground floor there were three large rooms each opening on to the veranda which adapted easily to provide 23 long- stay beds for school aged children while three similar rooms upstairs provided an equal number of beds for younger children. A nursery unit for T.B. babies with feeding problems plus accommodation for two mothers was established in what had been the Nursery wing. Breast feeding was out of fashion at that time and although the midwives at the Maternity Unit might claim a 50% rate on discharge, many of the mothers switched their babies to the bottle as soon as they got home. During the war the Government had introduced National Dried Milk which was obtained from infant welfare clinics at a subsidised rate. Feeding schedules were generally rigid: four hourly feeds x5 being the rule while smaller infants were given half cream milk. Solids in the form of cereals such as Farex were not introduced until the age of about six months.

The demand on these long-stay (not in any way to be confused with ‘convalescent’!) beds was such that the unit was often fully occupied particularly on the ground floor. In summer months the children from the ground floor wards were wheeled out in their beds on to the large sunny veranda. The garden was the scene of a near tragedy when a group of toddlers in a playpen decided to act in unison and succeeded in pushing their pen to the edge of the fish pond in the middle of the lawn, into which they plopped one by one! Fortunately none of them was drowned and the fish pond was converted to a rose bed. Another memorable occasion was when Bursledon was unexpectedly invaded by children from the Swanage Children’s Hospital, a convalescent home on the cliffs above Peverill Point which suddenly threatened to slide into the sea.

One of the important assets of Bursledon was that children could continue with their education. In December 1949 the HMG requested the Hampshire Education Authority to provide a teacher and Mrs Groll was appointed in May 1950. Bursledon was officially recognised as a “Hospital Special School” in September 1951. In the early days the teaching was entirely in the wards; the medical and nursing staff having to take great care to disturb the lessons as little as possible. Later, with the changing character of the patients, purpose built wooden buildings were erected behind the hospital. I am very grateful to Mrs Brenda Marshall the last headteacher for giving me her account of the school which is included in Chapter VIII.

On the surgical side in 1950, Mr Richardson was the only surgeon on the staff: he was joined in 1951 by Mr Tom Rowntree who recalls that at that time the theatre at the Children’s Hospital was the best in the city. Mr Richardson retired in 1968 and Mr John Webster joined the staff In his place. In his time Mr Rowntree was responsible for developing some important innovations. In order to reduce the distress of extensively burned small children requiring daily dressings, he decided to try treating them naked under strict barrier control in individual cubicles The results were most satisfactory for patients and staff alike. He also abandoned the use of pelvic drains in cases of perforated appendicitis and of deep sutures in muscle splitting incisions. The abolition of these procedures led to a reduction both of discomfort and of wound sepsis. Perhaps his most important innovation devised in collaboration with the anaesthetist Dr Pat Shackleton was the then revolutionary decision to treat hernia cases as Day patients, a practice which was to be further developed by Mr Atwell.

Ramstedt’s operation for pyloric stenosis was always popular with surgeons. We in Southampton never subscribed to the claim that treatment should be ‘medical’ although a locum for Dr Ormiston who had trained with Dr Jacoby at Farnborough did treat his own cases and even did a Ramstedt’s operation himself. Babies for operation would be bandaged to a crucifix and given a dummy, sometimes dipped into syrup of chloral, to suck while the operation was performed under local anaesthetic.

A controversial question was that of the circumcision clinic at that time held weekly in O.P.s by the S.H.O.s. Following a provocative article by Dr Douglas Gairdner, a paediatrician, in the ‘Lancet’ entitled ‘The fate of the Foreskin’ many paediatricians believed that this mutilating operation was usually unnecessary and should be abolished. At the Children’s hospital there was pressure to ensure that at very least the S.H.O.s should be properly instructed in the technique.

In the early 1960s surgery on hydrocephalus by means of the Spitz-Holter valve became possible and the early closure of spina-bifida was also widely advocated for all cases. Mr Rowntree accepted this policy with some reluctance. It led to a great increase in the number of survivors many of whom had severe medical, surgical and social problems. As the full implications of this policy became apparent many difficult ethical considerations also came to the fore.

On a National level the policy also resulted in an increase in the total surgical work load which together with the development of neonatal surgery led to a government working party calling for’ the establishment of Regional Paediatric Surgical Centres throughout the country. This pressure together with the fact that Mr Rowntree had been invited to become the first chairman of the reorganised Group Medical Executive Committee led to his resignation from S.C.H. and the appointment in 1969 of Mr John Atwell as the first full time Paediatric Surgeon with Regional responsibilities. He was shortly to be joined by Mr Neil Freeman. One of the best remembered persons in the surgical team was Flo Coady. She came to the hospital during the war years as a Red Cross volunteer and Mr Richardson recalls that at times she ran the theatre almost single handed. She continued to work in the theatre in different capacities finally as sister for over twenty years.

Sadly in the end she had to resign because she had never done her general training. During her time in theatre she was almost obsessional in her devotion. She made herself available at all hours of the day or night seldom taking days off. When the theatre was not in action she would spend hours cleaning and polishing. Subsequently she continued to provide a very valuable service running medical clinics or O.P.s.

The Out-patients Department on the ground floor below Ward II was approached along a narrow and dangerous drive to the side of the hospital. In 1950 it was in the charge of Sister Jenny Tutcher. There was a fair sized waiting hall with a large fish tank in front of the seats and a small canteen with Gladys in charge, behind.

To the left of the main entrance was the reception window and records office. A friendly face at the reception window can make all the difference to an apprehensive child and it’s mother. We were particularly fortunate in having a succession of wonderful people in the office starting with Miss Yeates and followed by Mrs Jean Foster and later by Mrs Carol Whealey. Some of the patients notes were stored in the office but the rest were in the old stables down the garden next to the mortuary; an unpleasant trip for the staff on a wet day. Sharing the office with the records staff was a medical secretary.

Next to the Records office, Miss May. the Lady Almoner, had a minute office shared with her clerk. In the corner was the pharmacy with a hatch into the waiting room and a preparation and sterilising room behind. Miss Stevens was the pharmacist in charge in 1950 to be followed by Mr Miller and later Miss Tracey.

There were two smallish inter-communicating consulting rooms which housed the O.P. clinics. Each clinic was run in a somewhat different way according to tire consultant’s preference. He was supported by either sister or by a staff nurse who would call the patients in from the waiting hail outside. They would have previously been weighed and measured in Casualty. In my clinics sister also made any necessary follow-up appointments in the room before the patient left. There was usually a saucer of ‘Smarties’ on the consultant’s desk as well as a selection of small toys. In addition to the consultant and sister there was often a G.P. Clincal Assistant or student in the room not to mention the patient and his mother. I was very fortunate in that once a week Dr Capes would be using the adjacent consulting room so that I could easily get a snap psychiatric opinion on a case without having to wait for a formal appointment. The size of the clinics varied considerably; if they were mainly ‘old’ patients there could be thirty or more in a session. But probably not more than ten new patients would be seen at a time

In the course of time special clinics such as cardiac, diabetic, psychosomatic, spastic, adolescent etc were established sometimes held jointly with a visiting consultant In addition there were dermatological, E.N.T., physiotherapy and speech clinics mostly for internal referrals only. Once a week the consulting rooms would be cleared for Dentals and a formidable looking dental chair would replace the usual desk, with the anaesthetic machine in the adjoining room, Except for a few years during the war Mr Sanders ran the weekly dental clinic from 1939 until the hospital closed in 1974.

The Casually Department was on the other side of the waiting room with it’s treatment room complete with a gas heated steriliser and anaesthetic machine. Many of the children presenting at the department were ‘casuals’ rather’ than true casualties. It was a busy department which was always open. As well as providing a very valuable service, it also gave important experience for the junior staff. Later there was strong pressure to close the department and the open hours were reduced to 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m.

The Children’s hospital was not the only unit in Southampton which treated children :in fact in 1940 there were officially 165 children’s beds in the Group of which only 65 were at S.C.H. . A 28 bed ward at the General Hospital admitted children mostly for Ts and As.. Orthopaedic children were nursed at the Royal South Hants Hospital and at Lord Mayor Treloar’s at Alton. The Eye Hospital had a small children’s ward and at the old Isolation, then the Chest Hospital, there was an old fashioned infectious disease block (Pavilion A.) as well as a modern children’s ward for cardiac cases. Later when Dr McLachlan retired the paediatric staff took over the care of the infectious patients (including a few adults) in Pavilion A. and included the unit in our junior staff rota.

It was several years before we were allowed access to the babies in the Maternity Unit. Intensive care for neonates was very much in its infancy and little specialised equipment was available. Intravenous fluids were either administered into a scalp vein or by cut down. Incubators were usually obtained on hire from Oxygenaire. When in 1955 the wife of an international banker en route for London, unexpectedly gave birth to premature twins in Southampton, a question was asked in the House of Commons a few days later as to the number of incubators at Southampton General Hospital. The response was very gratifying! Exchange transfusion for haemolytic disease of the newborn had recently been introduced and I well remember my first successful case in Winchester being reported on the local radio. Once the procedure became well established however, it began to take up an unacceptable amount of our time and became quite a problem. We were one of the first units to develop phototherapy for neonatal jaundice using our own home made apparatus or natural sunshine when available. We also pioneered the use of a plastic oesophageal tube for feeding premature infants.

During this period there was almost continuous pressure to close the Children’s Hospital on the grounds that it was hopelessly out of date and that the average bed occupancy was unacceptably low. On this point we were able to show that this was due to a very high turnover. The average stay in a bed at Winchester Rd being only a few days; in fact there were periods of acute bed shortage. The medical staff agreed that the hospital certainly did need updating but strongly opposed the suggested closure and transfer to the General Hospital. Then in 1956 an unexpected factor came to our aid; this was a very unpleasant outbreak, in Southampton, of sepsis due to anew type of staphylococcus (Phage type 00). It was believed to have arrived in the city via the ships from Australia and first presented in the general surgical wards as wound sepsis and in the Maternity Unit as breast abscesses etc. It did not take long to spread to the babies in the Maternity Unit or to Winchester Rd itself. The epidemic in Southampton lasted for about two years before it burnt itself out but it was interesting to follow it’s very gradual spread outwards over several years to involve in turn centres throughout the whole country.

At the Children’s Hospital we were able to point out the obvious dangers from our out dated sluices and lack of isolation facilities. Local M.P.s became involved and in June 1958 Mr Howard M.P. for Southampton Test, tabled a question in Parliament asking when the buildings of the Southampton Children’s Hospital would be replaced. The Minister of Health, Mr Derek Walker Smith, replied that improvements costing £20,000 would start almost at once. The Management committee had reluctantly agreed to allocate this sum for a major facelift. Again it was argued that this was ‘money down the drain’ and that an entirely new comprehensive children’s hospital should be built but funds for such an enterprise were not available.

Unfortunately the work necessitated the closure of the wards and in July 1958 the in-patients were transferred to Willan ward in the Royal South Hants Hospital and the gastro-enteritis babies to the Chest Hospital. Out- patients were held in cramped conditions on the ground floor of the Nurses home. The modernisation involved cubiclization of most of Ward I, the extension of Ward II and the provision of new sluices and other equipment. We ended up with 7 cubicles and 10 beds in Ward I and 8 cubicles plus two wards of 8 and 4 beds in Ward II. The work took longer than expected but eventually the hospital was reopened in June 1959 by Mrs Victoria King, chairman of the H.M.C., supported by three local M.P.s.

The question of visiting was, for a long time, a thorny one. Until World War II visiting was allowed from 2-4 p.m. daily Sundays excepted but then it became confined to 1 hour on Wednesday and Sunday afternoons and in 1947 it was banned completely for fear of cross infection. In 1950 however very limited visiting (1 hour on weekdays except Fridays and 1 hour on Sundays) was again permitted though the parents had to wear facemasks. On a National level Dr John Bowlby and Mr James Robertson had alerted public opinion to the possible psychological trauma suffered by young children admitted to hospital. Dr Mary Capes strongly supported their views and led a long campaign to liberalise visiting hours not only at the Children’s Hospital but also in the other units in Southampton admitting children. In the former with the support of most of the staff she was very successful and S.C.H. became quite a national model in this respect. ‘Free visiting’ (11 a.m.-7 p.m.) was established experimentally in 1959. In the following year a successful appeal was opened by the League of Friends to provide sleeping accommodation for two mothers in a small attic room on the second floor which was much appreciated.

By the middle sixties the number of cases of rheumatic fever and nephritis had declined sharply and Bursledon became increasingly involved with psychosomatic and behavioural disorders. It was no longer necessary to have a resident medical officer there. In place of the R.M.O. we established the post of Clinical Assistant which was held part-time by a succession of married women doctors, the longest serving of these was Dr Jean Davies who was appointed early in the 1960s and continued until the unit closed in 1988. During the sixties also we became increasingly involved with the care of children with chronic handicaps. Previously we had been concerned mainly with the more obvious types of mental handicap such as Diran’ s syndrome but these children tended to disappear into Tatchbury Mount or Cold East and we lost touch. Rubella embryopathy was relatively common until vaccination against German measles was introduced. Children with cerebral palsy were cared for by Mrs Welch at her house in Rose Road and in 1951 at the purpose built Spastic Centre in Aster Road.

In 1962 we were suddenly presented with a number of babies with stunted limbs and other serious malformations. It was soon realised that these cases were being born to mothers who had taken Distaval (thalidomide) in early pregnancy. Many of these babies died but some survived with varying degrees of handicap. One of my cases (Graham) was born without any limbs, eyes or ears, it was thus quite impossible to communicate with him although somehow he did seem able to respond to a radio placed on his cot and would hum the Beatles tune ‘Yellow Submarine’ Also at this time it first became possible to prevent the development of severe mental handicap in cases of phenylketonuria by the strict implementation of a very unpleasant dietary regime.

It became increasingly apparent that there were a great many handicapped children in the area who required care and whose families needed support. Their problems were complex and involved many different medical, social and educational disciplines. It seemed essential to try to coordinate these various bodies in order to provide an integrated diagnostic and caring service. The groundwork for this multi-disciplinary approach was laid down in the later sixties and has of course been greatly expanded since.

Also, recognition of the rubella and thalidomide types of embryopathy together with the fact that for the first time it had became possible to identify human chromosomes and to relate certain syndromes such as Down’s with chromosome abnormalities, suddenly opened up the whole field of the causation and prevention of congenital disorders. Dr Elspeth Williams went to London to learn the techniques of genetic counselling from Dr Cedric Carter and others and later carried out a number of family studies in the Southampton district on certain hereditary disorders such as spina-bifida and congenital heart disease. When her training was completed she set up a weekly genetic clinic at the Children’s Hospital which was one of the first in the country. In time this developed into a substantial Regional service. We were very fortunate in having an excellent liaison with Marina Seabright who at the same time was developing a top class laboratory cytogenetic service in Salisbury.

1969 saw the start of a new system of medical administration: the main clinical disciplines formed ‘Divisions’ each of which provided a representative to serve on the Medical Executive Committee which was given increased authority. The Division of Child Health comprised not only those consultants with child patients, representatives of the junior medical. nursing and administrative staffs but also a G.P. and a senior member of the Community Child Health Service. The Division proved to be a very valuable forum for the discussion of child health matters.

We were also very fortunate at this time in having a close liaison with Professor Donald Court of Newcastle later President of the B.P.A. and author of the report ‘Fit for the Future’ . His help and advice on many matters involving the hospital was invaluable.

The arrival of Mr John Atwell in 1969 had a big effect on the surgical side of the hospital. As well as developing his regional commitments the volume and complexity of the surgical work at S.C.H. increased dramatically. His particular interest was in the urinary tract. He was also responsible for a tremendous growth in the amount of Day Surgery performed; by 1973 well over a thousand such cases were treated annually including hernias and orchidopexies.

An essential corollary of this was the creation of the Paediatric Home Nursing Service which he instituted with the help of Miss Isobel Ames and the M.O.H. At first this comprised two children’s trained sisters working within the boundaries of the city but with very close ties with the hospital. This service also had the added advantage of enabling the earlier discharge of post-operative patients. From these early beginnings the service has expanded greatly under the direction of Sister Peggy Flint and Mr Atwell to become a very important national front runner.

The old O.P. department was converted to provide a 5 bed ward for these cases in the previous treatment room and also an additional 10 bed surgical ward (Ward III). Casualty was housed in the previous consulting rooms.

A new single storied temporary Out Patients building was erected in the car park behind the original block which provided considerable additional accommodation for consulting rooms etc.

SPECIAL DEPARTMENTS

Pharmacy

A Lady Dispenser was appointed in 1898 in order, it was hoped, to reduce the drug bill. Miss Martin who was appointed in 1906 was paid 7/6d per week; she resigned in 1915 for health reasons and her place was taken by Miss Burniston the Hon. Secretary who was, fortunately, qualified. She complained that the dispensary scales, which were also used for kitchen purposes, had become inaccurate and out of date. In 1924 a dispenser was loaned by Boots for a while to cover a gap at the hospital. In 1950 the dispensary was in charge of Miss Stevens who was followed in 1954 by Mr Miller and later in 1959 by Miss Traces I am indebted to the latter for her account of “Life in the Pharmacy”

“I realised after a very short time that my first impression of the Pharmacy was far from correct. I was escorted down a very long corridor past the warm smells of cooking, then anaesthetics, and into a small room. The walls were clad from ceiling to floor with shelves, workbenches and banks of drawers. It was my first venture into real pharmacy. Until then my life had been full of variety. As a freelance locum I had managed shops throughout the South and the Isle of Wight. The big one was Boots at Henley on Thames during Regatta Week, the smallest a village pharmacy in the heart of the New Forest. When I changed course it was from ‘Chanel’ to carbolic overnight.

I was a lost soul in my new post and felt very much the new girl. For the first month or so there was so much to learn. My technician guided me through the colours of nurses’ uniforms and other staff, but I had no problem identifying matron. The folk in white coats or suits were a study on their own. “Is that a doctor or a surgeon?” “Is that doctor or should I say Mister?” Etc. Very soon I realised that I had joined one big happy family and was singing carols round the wards followed by mince pies and sherry in Oakfield.

Life behind the hatch was very busy and each day had its strict routine. The baskets from the wards, theatre, X-ray and Path Lab arrived on a trolley at 9 a.m. These were collected by the porters at 11 a.m. Treatment cards then arrived for any patients requiring special drugs or T.T.O.s (To Take Out). Twice weekly the Bursledon basket arrived accompanied by their T.T.O.s. We dreaded periods before Christmas and other holidays when so many children were allowed home for a break.

Monday afternoons were a pleasant change. We went “down to the store” and left a note on the door to that effect. Here orders for dressings and sundries were assembled for the wards and theatre. The room was situated at the back of the Chapel and was devoid of any form of heat. It was agony in the winter and the orders were completed in record time! A cup of Bovril from Gladys in the canteen quickly revived us.

Friday afternoons were unforgettable. It was Skin Clinic time. The mothers regularly visited with their pathetic little eczema sufferers and patiently wailed for their big bags of assorted creams, lotions and syrups. It was a very noisy gathering and many friendships blossomed among the mothers over a cup of tea and a cake. I must confess that the noise of the toys was curtailed by a careful extraction of any squeaks or quacks! Musical instruments were hidden. One afternoon a bright little lad hit on the idea of using our door as a station for his push-along train. By careful timing I opened the door and the engine sped along the Pharmacy floor to be lost forever. Another occasion comes to mind when I called out the name of an anti-histamine syrup instead of the child’s name. Needless to say no Mum responded and I retreated into my hole with a very red face!

Other afternoons were spent preparing infusion fluids. The department was responsible for supplying the whole hospital. All the drug supplies were ordered and delivered daily from the Royal South Hants. One day a miracle arrived in the form of proprietary infusions. We continued to prepare our special sterile products, particularly the formula to the milk room for dehydrated infants,

The problems of supplying the various departments with instruments and sundries were many. Stock sizes were too large for children and infants. Most of our orders were sent via the main Supplies department, to the appropriate firms. Proprietary mixtures and syrups were often unsuitable and needed to be adjusted for the weight and age of the child. Many problems were solved by cutting tablets into halves or quarter’s with a scalpel blade and converting the pieces into powders. Another obstacle would be overcome by emptying ampoules to form the base of a required mixture. The Pharmacy also supplied oxygen and other gases to the wards and theatre. lt worked well on an arrangement with British Oxygen on a “full cylinder for an empty” basis. Towards the end, we were fitted with piped oxygen which saved many dramas from shortage of porters to move the “big oxygens”.

A big occasion was the Wednesday afternoon Clinical Meeting. These took place regularly and we carefully watched for the day to arrive. At 3 p.m. our front door was closed, so we rushed round the wards beforehand to top up supplies to everyone before we were imprisoned! Any further business was conducted from outside through the window over the sink,

During the years I was there we saw the tragedy of the thalidomide babies. It was harrowing to know that a drug on our shelves could cause so much distress. On a happier note I also saw the advent of steroids and cytotoxic drugs and many broad spectrum antibiotics,

It was a sad day when the patients left “to go the General”. I can remember the green van collecting items from the wards with a teddy bear tied to the front of the bonnet. Goodbye to a very special era.

Massage Department

This department was set up in 1921 with the appointment of Miss Hounsell as Honorary Masseuse. She requested the purchase of electric equipment to give galvanic stimulation and it was agreed to obtain this second hand from R.V. H., Netley. Unfortunately when delivered it was found to be only suitable for a direct current! However she did give 600 treatments in 1921. Ten years later in 1931 the records show that 1401 massage and 1682 electrical treatments were given as well as 438 Swedish Remedial Exercises.

A new department. including X-ray was provided in 1928 on the Ground floor of the new Shirley Wing built on to the front of the old house. Dr Vincent Rice was appointed to the staff in the following year being in charge of massage, electro- therapy and x-ray. The department was run by Mrs Thomas from 1931 to 1947. In that year Dr Ormiston wanted space for his new gastro-enteritis ward so the physiotherapy section of the department was moved across the side drive to the old kitchens at the back of Oakfield. Dr Jim Preston was appointed Director of Physical Medicine in 1948 and attended the Children’s Hospital on alternate Thursday afternoons until we moved in 1974. The department consisted of three rooms, a waiting room, a treatment room and a storeroom. As well as a desk and couch the treatment room had wall and parallel bars and also ultra-violet and infrared lamps. At first the main referrals were children with asthma and some with minor orthopaedic disorders but later those with cerebral palsy and spina-bifida dominated the scene. Many of these required prolonged physiotherapy and perhaps the provision of appliances following orthopaedic operations

X-ray Department

“As mentioned above, X-ray equipment was first provided in 1928. After the war this had become obsolete and an appeal for funds to buy a new machine was launched. With the transfer of Physiotherapy across the drive the X-ray department became independent and Dr Rice confined his responsibilities to radiology. Consultant cover was rather thin for some years and I had to do my own screening of heart cases. I also did my own bronchograms using a technique I had learned at Great Ormond Street, which involved the introduction of a barbarous cannula through the crico- thyroid membrane. I soon abandoned this method. Dr Ivan Hyde came to the Children’s Hospital in 1965 to replace Dr Bob Caton, Dr Rice having retired earlier. Anne Arscott was the radiographer in charge assisted by a part-timer doing three sessions. The previous secretarial cover had been lost. Dr Hyde remembers “The main entrance to the hospital was by a side door into a small hall around which were clustered the telephone exchange, Matron’s office, the milk kitchen, the main passage and the entrance to the X-ray department. Immediately inside this door was a sizeable room containing the x-ray set which was suitable for straightforward radiology and fluoroscopy (with dark adaptation). Opening off this room by a narrow passage were in sequence, the darkroom, a small office and a lavatory, in which they also made the coffee. All film processing was manual, In 1967 Anne Arscott left and was replaced by Sandra Read. During this year David Williamson asked me it I thought an image intensifier would be a suitable objective for the Southampton Carnival Appeal, an opportunity not to be missed, The appeal was supported by Dr Horace King, Speaker of the House of Commons and the machine was handed over by Dr and Mrs King in July 1970. Drs Brunton and Burrows also attended the hospital but were replaced by Dr Cook in 1968”.

“1969 was a milestone when I was allowed a part-time secretary. She was Sheila Clement, who came as a temp. from the secretarial agency and stayed with us until her retirement. In May this year JDA arrived and the pace of change increased”.

“The second part-time Radiographer post was filled by a number of excellent young ladies - Jenny Bullivant, Hilary Smith, Stella Bowyer. Most of our radiographers left to have babies and many of them came back to us afterwards in a part-time capacity and some are still with us. In 1971 we acquired a second part-time secretary, Rosemary Port, also from the agency and she is still with us, soon to retire (1990).

“From about 1968 Registrars in training in Radiology came to the Children’s as part of their course and they are all now consultants.

“The thing that stands out most in my recollections is the quality of the Radiographers. Their work was of a high standard under very difficult conditions. No one grumbled about working too hard or too long and being such a small hospital there was a very good rapport with the nursing staff, admin, domestics, porters - everyone employed on the site. The same applied to Sheila Clement and Rosemary Port when they were appointed secretaries One never had any demarcation disputes or rivalries.

“John Atwell and Neil Freeman provided us with a substantially increased workload of greater complexity. They drew in an enormous amount of surgical material, which required more radiological investigations, and all of us felt it was a pleasure to work with such experts. Working in such a well-defined children’s unit gave us the nucleus to transfer bodily to the General Hospital where we could so easily have been fragmented and separated from the body of Paediatrics. Looking back the accommodation and facilities were poor but no worse than those at the General and Royal South Hants.

“The neonatal ward was next to the X-ray department which was very convenient as sister would pick up the very sick babies and transport them for immediate radiology and back to the ward in no time at all. We learned how to handle these sick infants with confidence and we also learned how to accommodate the increasing volume of cases with dispatch. It was the time when spina-bifida was treated aggressively - we did enormous numbers of micturating cystograms, IVPs and air encephalograms. Congenital abnormalities of the Gl and GU tracts also required radiological investigations both before and after operation.

“Medical paediatrics did not change in such a revolutionary manner - it was a case of more of the same. Prof Normand and his team pointed us in the direction of academic disciplines; I think we had to adopt a more academic approach; although it is difficult to describe the changes we encompassed, I hope that we seized the opportunities to stretch ourselves”.

Radiography was seldom straightforward; Diana Claisse recalls doing micturating cystograms on small children often with assistance from young helpers from the ward “that with taps running, whistles and cold hands on the tummy, it was more likely us that wanted to perform than the child,” while Ann Arscott remember’s Dr Caidwell’s Friday afternoon skin clinics - “he used our blackout facilities for detecting rigwur’m with UV light, the Xray room being bigger than the linen cupboard he had to use if we were busy, We also had the occasional wart charming — he sent children along to Xr’ay - I pointed the xray tube at the offending wart without making an exposure. He seemed to think it was quite effective!”

Pathology Department

Dr Seager Thomas was appointed as Hon. Pathologist in 1925 but he died in 1934 being replaced by Dr Gleave who also died in office in 1952. Dr Steven Dobson from the General Hospital then supervised the Children’s Hospital until the appointment of Dr Joan Guy in 1957. A small laboratory in the attic was established in 1947 staffed by a part-time technician who became full time in 1949.

Dr Joan Guy has recorded her own memories of the department: “When I arrived in Southampton at the end of 1957 it was suggested that having spent some years in paediatrics before becoming a pathologist, l might like to take an interest in the Children’s Hospital. The Path Lab was a small attic, ill-lit and ill ventilated, perishingly cold in winter and unbearably hot in summer reached by a steep narrow flight of stairs. There was also a post-mortem room next to the mortuary in the old stable block down the garden. The less said about it the better and it was with no regret that it was abandoned in 1961 when the first new autopsy room at the General was built. This was certainly more hygienic though less convenient for the clinicians.

A technician visited every afternoon to take blood samples, do simple blood counts and E.S.R.s and test urines. It was quite obvious that this was inadequate so the first step was to increase her hours. The suggestion met with resistance in the Pathology Deportment but the problem was soon solved when it became known that she was pregnant. In 1958 pregnant technicians were rare in the laboratory and were considered an embarrassment, so full time work at the Children’s Hospital was a form of honourable banishment and was agreed. This was the beginning of a real pathology service and by dint of scrounging old equipment we began to increase the range of work. An old incubator was found so urine and C.S.F. could be cultured and sensitivity tests done. When new microscopes were bought for the Gerreral Hospital one of their cast-off s was acquired and was much better than our previous one. Sheila stayed to the eighth month of her pregnancy with everyone becoming increasingly anxious about her negotiating those awful stairs carrying trays of specimens.

Hazel replaced Sheila: she was a senior technician, experienced in both haematology and bacteriology. She liked working on her own and the scope of the work increased steadily. When the hospital was up-graded in the early 60’s we looked for a better site for the laboratory. A room was available in Oaklands next to the coal-hole. This room measuring about l0’x14’ became the lab and the coal-hole about 8’ square became the venesection room. A narrow passage leading into the hall was blocked off and turned into a washing-up room and a small area of the hall with a door leading into the front garden blocked off to form the pathologist’s office. The whole suite was minute but compared with the attic it was palatial. It was painted pink and was convenient for Out-patients, though hazardous as the main door opened directly on to the drive with a constant flow of traffic. Mercifully no-one was ever injured though it was highly dangerous.

At this time the pathology service was being increasingly used by G.P.s so they were invited to send child patients to Winchester instead of to the General Hospital where children had been considered noisy, difficult and generally troublesome. Work increased rapidly and the fight for extra staff began. A nurse-venesector came in the afternoons, then a secretary for two hours a day to type reports. She suffered from the antique typewriter we acquired but struggled on till a better one became available. A great advance was the acquisition of a washer-up for 1 hour each morning. This relieved the technician of the time-wasting chore of cleaning glassware. An ancient autoclave was found at the General and this terrifying piece of apparatus was installed and mastered with much trepidation. The hospital van called three or four times a day to collect specimens. Chemistry results came back much faster. Frank, the van driver, became our great ally in spite of occasional fits of “temperament” that were hard to bear.

This was a time of real pleasure for me, working on a one-to- one basis with some of our very best technicians. Hazel was succeeded by Angela and then Della took over. These girls were superb, more like housemen. They were very skilled at venepuncture and at times they succeeded in putting up drips where new housemen had failed. They were quick to spot the ill child sent up by G.P.s and always took extra blood for relevant investigations that had not been requested to save the child a further venepuncture. They learned to take histories of recent infections, diet and drugs and frequently elucidated the cause of an anaemia or purpura, sometimes to the chagrin of our clinical colleagues. They could sense a new leukaemia almost as the child came in through the door and would ask the parent to wait while they rushed the count and film through and telephoned me to come at once to confirm the diagnosis and take action. It became accepted that the technician post at Winchester Road was one with special responsibilities and we were allowed a junior as it was thought to be such a good training post. When automated staining machines came on the market we put in for one and it was a great success having a cycle time of 15 minutes. About the same time we also got a blood sugar analyser.

After about six years the place began to look shabby, so we put in for redecoration only to be told that we were not on the schedule for another 3-4 years but that the walls could be washed. This was not a great success and the place still looked dingy and unattractive. So we resolved to redecorate the outer room ourselves Angela and I went to town and bought five rolls of enchanting nursery wall—paper. Two of the men from the General came and painted the ceiling and window. Every evening after work we stayed on paper hanging while various housemen dropped in to help. Much coffee and sandwiches and the occasional fish and chips were consumed; (these were the days before the Health and Safety regulations forbade eating and drinking in laboratories). Everyone was delighted with the results especially the children who found the place much less forbidding; everyone that is except for Mr Wood, for we had told no one of our plan and had not asked for permission. When it was discovered, the hospital painters almost threatened to go on strike and had to be placated. When his wrath had subsided even Mr Wood had to agree that it was a great success and when eventually the paper showed signs of wear, he agreed to it being replaced officially.

These were very happy and rewarding years with the lab staff being integral and respected members of the hospital staff. We were sad to leave Winchester Road knowing that it was an end of an era for pathology. Present-day lab staff have virtually no contact with patients. Most routine tests are automated and done in vast batches. Clinicians are rarely seen in laboratories and are more likely to be known as aggressive voices at the end of the telephone. The volume of work has increased phenomenally as has the sophistication of investigations and equipment but what proportion of these tests are relevant and is the overall pattern of investigation as cost—effective as it used to be? It is my impression that laboratories are not the happy places they were”.

Almoner/Social Work Department

During the thirties if a patient requiring treatment was not adequately covered by one of the health insurance schemes, the Secretary, Miss Matthews, would see the parents and make the necessary arrangements. The first whole time Lady Almoner, Miss Rosamund May was appointed in 1948. She was closely involved with the clinical staff and regularly attended consultants ward rounds. Her family reports were always interesting and with her own family connections with the stage seldom lacked drama! Mr Rowntree recalls her tale of the mother who brought her third illegitimate baby to the hospital. When Miss May gently suggested that she might consider getting married she replied, “Oh no. When I was 18 I had something wrong with my heart, and the doctor said I should never marry

Miss May retired in 1969 and was replaced by Miss Jeanne Christie.

STAFF

A hospital is of course more than just a matter of bricks and mortar; it is the staff that give it it’s reputation - good or bad. In later years at least, the Children’s Hospital was fortunate in having a contented staff who worked together as a team and whose main objective was to serve the patients entrusted to their care.

It is sadly not possible to recall all those who at various times during it’s 90 year existence served the hospital in some capacity or other. I have however attempted to list the more senior members of staff in Appendix I.

Nursing Staff.

The Matron who initially was referred to as (Lady) Superintendent was for many years responsible for the housekeeping and general running of the hospital as well as performing her nursing duties. At first she was probably supported by just one other nurse with a second in 1892. In 1894 we are told “The Lady Superintendent has also attended to 12 or more cases in the past 12 months”. Presumably she was, ante-dating the present Paediatric Home Nursing Service by a good many years!

By 1911 there appear to have been a sister and a probationer nurse while the Superintendent was given permission to employ an extra nurse from Mrs Haldane’s agency during the busy season at £1 per month. She herself was paid £40 p.a. plus £10 per month for the running expenses of the hospital. In addition they were all given a Christmas box by the Managing Committee each year.

In 1913 the nursing staff was increased by a staff nurse and a second probationer and it was agreed that the probationers should be given some formal training though this was not implemented until 1921 The domestic staff appears to have consisted of a cook/general and a part time charwoman paid 1/- for a half day.

In 1918 a Mrs Lambert from New York, applied to spend a month at the hospital in order to receive nursing tuition from matron.

By 1921 the nursing staff comprised: matron, one sister, a night nurse, a staff nurse and two probationers who were enrolled for one year. At this time it was again suggested that some formal training should be given to the probationers; Dr Gillespie agreed to give lectures and arrangements were also made for the nurses to attend the Royal South Hants Hospital.

In 1929 the nursing staff had increased to two sisters and two staff nurses. However matron would still go along to the ‘village’ to do the shopping. Miss Tomkinson resigned from the post of matron after nineteen years service in 1928 and was replaced by Miss L. Sellers who had been Assistant Matron at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh. She in her turn, served for seventeen years before having to retire on account of ill health. Miss Sellers was succeeded by Miss Golay from Great Ormond Street in 1944.

During World War II the nursing staff consisted of matron, 4 sisters and 10-12 nurses but they were often short staffed. The normal working hours were from 7.30 a.m. - 9 p.m. with 2 or 3 hours off and one day off per week. Night duty was from 9 p.m. - 8 a.m. with one late night per week starting at 10 p.m. The night nurses did 4-6 weeks duty running without a night off. They were paid about £40 - £50 p.a. and discipline was strict.

By the end of 1948 the number of nursing staff had increased to 56 including 6 sisters, 30 students and 11 P.T.S. The number continued to increase quite quickly to reach 91 in 1950. Thereafter there was much concern over declining numbers (down to 71 in 1954). Over the following ten years numbers again remained fairly steady but the proportion of students gradually dropped following the closure of the Training school.

Nurse Training

A training school for Sick Children’s nurses was established in the thirties, being officially recognised in 1936, but it had to be suspended at the outbreak of hostilities, reopening again in 1944 when Miss Morgan from Great Ormond Street was appointed Sister Tutor The first students then being those whose training had been interrupted by the war. Thereafter the intake was about four students every four months.

A classroom had been included in the second part of the nurses home opened in 1931 but this was abandoned in favour of the ground floor of one of houses in Vinery Gardens. the upstairs of which being occupied by the resident medical officers. At first there was no P.T.S and no block system - lectures taking place during off-duty hours. Nurses had to go up to London for their final R.S.C.N. exams. After the acquisition of the Bursledon Annexe, Miss Morgan was temporarily appointed as Sister in charge and the P.T.S. was also housed there temporarily. Later the school was at Westwood House for a short while before returning to Winchester Road.

In addition to the course for the R.S.C.N. certificate a Preliminary Training School that accepted girls on leaving school until they were 18 and able to start the proper course was initiated. The ‘Block’ system was introduced in September 1950. In that year 19 candidates from the hospital sat the final R.S.C.N. exam and 15 passed. Although most of the students were local girls, some came from a distance, one from Thurso in the far north of Scotland and another from Greece. Several of the students who trained at the Children’s Hospital later became valued members of the permanent nursing staff.

Reports from the R.C.N. inspectors however were critical about many of the provisions in the hospitals and in 1947 there was a threat to withdraw recognition. We used the inspector’s criticisms to put pressure on the H.M.C for improvements. Miss Morgan resigned in 1958 to become matron of a special Mother and Baby social project in Athens and was never replaced. Unfortunately the R.C.N. also stipulated that continued recognition as a training school depended on there being a minimum of one hundred occupied beds available and in spite of much fiddling with figures recognition was eventually withdrawn in 1960.

Social Activities

When Miss Golay took over as matron in 1944 she started regular dances and parties for the nurses which were held in the O.P. department. Several ex-nurses vividly remember the badly burned airmen coming over from the Marchwood rehabilitation hospital who were always the most lively and hilarious of guests. In their turn, parties of nurses would be invited to social functions at various service units in the district. As well as the dances the nurses also produced their own concerts, which were put on in O.P.s at Christmas, and of course, these provided a good opportunity to put on some telling skits about senior members of staff.

The festive season has always been important in hospital calendars From the start funds and gifts were provided for parties for both In- and Out-patients. In 1949 the H.M.C. allowed 5/- per head for Christmas festivities. On Christmas Eve the nurses would sing carols around the illuminated Christmas tree in front of the hospital. At about ten o’clock on Christmas morning the hospital would be visited by the Salvation Army Band, who played carols in each of the wards in turn. The noise was terrific but they were very popular. As soon as the band had departed Father Christmas’ entourage would assemble in O.P.s. He and his sleigh (a trolley) would then ascend in the lift accompanied by the loud ringing of a bell. He too would visit each ward in turn distributing toys to the patients as well as to the visiting children of the medical staff somewhat to their parent’s embarrassment! As years went by fewer and fewer children remained in hospital over Christmas and those that did were usually very sick, with the result that Father Christmas’ visit became something of an embarrassment. However it remained a pleasant social occasion when the families of the staff were able to meet together. It was also usual for the mayor to pay us a visit. Those of us with commitments at several different hospitals throughout the Region had as many as half-a-dozen such visits to pay on Christmas morning. The traditional Christmas tea party in Out-patients for a selected number of regular attenders was a popular annual event.

Shortly after Christmas came Matron’s dance. At first this was held in O.P.s but soon after the war Dr Harold Bower who owned the Polygon Hotel then, arranged for it to be held there each year. All the staff were invited and matron would also invite men from one of the liners to make up numbers. Half way through we all sat down to a good supper though this was later replaced by coffee and sandwiches. In the early l950s it was a very formal affair with consultants expected to wear ‘white ties’. During the dancing we, with our wives, sat at the ‘High table’ going off to do our duty dances with matron and the senior sisters. In later years the dance became rather less formal and perhaps less popular but we were entertained by the spectacular dancing of Miss Tracey, the pharmacist, and her husband.

In the summer Matron gave a strawberry tea party on the occasion of the nurses prize-giving held on the lawn behind Oakfield under the magnificent copper beech tree to which ‘old girls’ were also invited in the hope, perhaps, that they would re-enlist!

Oakfield provided accommodation for matron and the sisters. Matron also had a very small office just to the left of the front door of the hospital. The nurses lived in the nurses home in Vinery Gardens but had their meals in the dining room off the main corridor in the hospital. In time an increasing number of nurses chose to be non-resident.

Medical Staff

The consultant’s staff room was on the ground floor at Oakfield. Because we felt it was important to keep in touch with one another we tried to arrange that on one day a week (Tuesdays) we should all have lunch together. This was very successful though the newly appointed Professor was once heard to remark that it was more like a gardening club than a medical assembly!

The first Resident Medical Officer was appointed in 1929. By 1947 there were two. It is said that during the war the R,M.O.s had to be unmarried women because they lived in the nurses quarters. The first male was appointed in 1948. By 1950 there were two H.P.s and one B.S. : they lived in one of the semi-detached houses facing Vinery Gardens. Our first registrar, Dr George Crawshaw, was appointed in 1950 and was shared with Winchester. The number of house officers was increased to four in 1959 and later to five. It was soon established that, because of the relative complexity of their duties, the House Officers should be of S.H.O. grade. Rather complicated rotations, at first involving only Bursledon, but later also the Infectious Disease unit at the Chest Hospital, the Special Care Baby Unit at the General and R.H.C.H. Winchester, were established. They were intended not only to cover the outer units but also to give the trainee doctors the widest possible experience. The frequent moves were not always popular and there were other complaints about the poor living conditions. However there were usually plenty of applicants. In 1958 arrangements were made for the registrar to rotate with St George’s Hospital in London, the first of his two years being spent with us. Later in 1972 a Senior Registrar post rotating with Portsmouth was established.

Students

For many years sporadic students from London teaching hospitals and elsewhere came to Southampton to do their ‘elective’ in paediatrics. In the late 1960s this practice was formalised when we agreed to take a regular intake of four students from the Royal Free Hospital; an arrangement, which was much appreciated both by ourselves and the students.

Post graduate Medical Education

Post graduate education was always considered important in Southampton. On the paediatric side, Dr Ormiston, soon after his arrival, had started monthly clinical meetings. These were held in out-patients on Wednesday afternoons and were aimed primarily at G.P.s and Child Welfare doctors but nurses in training were brought along by their sister tutor. Six to eight children either from the wards or from O.P.s were demonstrated. After an hour the patients would be removed and we would have refreshments before sitting down in the Casualty room. Dr Bower and later Dr Ormiston would take the chair. After a discussion on the cases there would be two or three more formal presentations by consultants and often an outside consultant would be invited to contribute. These meetings were very popular and some G.P.s came regularly from many miles away. From time to time more ambitious meetings were also staged.

With the rapid development of paediatrics we felt the need to keep in touch with our colleagues in other parts of the country. We were instrumental in founding the South West Metropolitan Paediatric club, which met at various hospitals throughout the region. In 1954 we hosted the summer meeting of the Paediatric Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the first such meeting to be held away from a university centre. The proceedings started in Winchester Cathedral where members were addressed by the Dean. After demonstrations and lunch at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital we moved to Bursledon for further case demonstrations etc. Mr Tom Rowntree created quite an impression by turning up in his donkey cart! Dr Ormiston and I had analysed our cases of nephritis types I and II and arising from this survey my families of Alports syndrome came to light. Dr Capes read a paper on paediatric/psychiatric cooperation and I presented one on the epidemiology of round worm infestation based on nearly one hundred cases, mainly related in some way to the gipsy population. We also hosted similar meetings for the SW. Metropolitan Paediatric Club and later for the South West Paediatric Club based on Bristol. As well as the academic content, these meetings provided excellent opportunities to compare each others units and for informal social activities. It was the pattern to try to lay on some local excursion for members and their spouses.

Medical library facilities were at first very poor. In 1950 we were given an allowance of £25 p.a. to provide textbooks and journals for the hospital. This was supplemented to some extent by donations from consultant staff. There was no Group Library though the other hospitals also had small individual collections. In the early sixties the anaesthetist, Dr Pat Shackleton was appointed Regional Post-graduate Adviser and in 1966 a Post Graduate Contra comprising a large lecture hall and dining room together with a central library, a tutorial room and offices was opened at the General Hospital later to be replaced by the South Academic Block.

The Medical School

The high quality of post-graduate medical education in Southampton and the rest of the Region in the sixties was said to have been one of the factors influencing the Minister of Health to choose Southampton in preference to Hull as the site for a new medical school. This decision in August 1967 was to be a major turning point for hospital practice in the area. The medical staff of the Children’s Hospital played an active role in persuading the newly appointed dean, Prof. Donald Acheson, that a Chair in Child Health should be given a high priority and we participated in the early discussions on the curriculum. Dr Colin Normand from UCH. was appointed to the Chair in 1970 to be followed shortly by his Senior Lecturer, Dr John Birkbeck, and lecturer, Dr Judith Darmady. These appointments together with an increase in junior staff provided among other things a very welcome easing of the clinical load. A two storey Portacabin was erected in the car park to provide office accommodation for them above and a storeroom below.

Administration

The Secretary’s office, together with the Administrative office were at first situated on the ground floor of Oakfield but later moved across to one of the Vinery Gardens houses. Miss Ella K.Mathews was still the Secretary in 1950. She was a powerful lady who had been in office since 1926 and knew everything about the working of the hospital. She retired the following year to be replaced by Mr Eric Woods. He was supported in the administrative office by Miss Foot who did the secretarial work and Miss Lynch who looked after the accounts. Miss Foot retired 1969 but Miss Lynch continued with us until we moved,

There were two medical secretaries who were accommodated in different offices and we were fortunate in having a succession of excellent ladies in this role. At first Dr Ormiston had arranged that all the case notes should be typed and the secretary sat in on O.P.clinics. Although an excellent idea, it had to be abandoned after a while as impractical. The introduction of tape recorders was a great asset but sadly less personal. An important part of the secretaries’ work was the typing of the patient’s discharge summaries written by the housemen. These were very valuable documents giving details of the child’s illness together with the investigations and treatment carried out.

An valuable innovation in the late sixties was the appointment of Ward Clerks to relieve the ward sisters of some of their clerical load.

THE LEAGUE OF FRIENDS

When the N.H.S. took over the old Voluntary hospitals their charitable funds were transferred to the to the so-called Amenity Funds. The Children’s Hospital’s Amenity Fund was relatively large and was augmented each year by many donations and legacies. However we found it extremely difficult to get at the amenity fund money for any project we wished to promote although the H.M.C. sometimes used these ‘Free monies’ to purchase equipment etc, which we did not consider should be covered by the term ‘amenity’. However the provision of a canteen in the O.P. waiting room was entirely justified.

The almoner had a special ‘Samaritan Fund’ which she could dispense to needy families at her own discretion. It had originally been funded largely by the Union Castle Shipping Line but later the League of Friends took on the role.

Most of the fund raising organisations of the old voluntary hospitals were in time replaced by Leagues of Friends. The Children’s Hospital League of Friends was inaugurated on November 2nd 1954 at the instigation of Mrs M. B. Sloan and others. She became the first Honorary Secretary and Mrs C.F. Moody Chairman. Mrs Sloan was succeeded as hon. sec. by Mrs D. E. Oxford, who held the post most energetically for 15 years. Her husband was also a very active member of the committee and is well remembered by the staff of the time for his appearance each Christmas on his sleigh wearing a red gown and a white beard! The Oxfords had lost their only child Graham in 1952. Mrs Moody resigned in 1967 to be succeeded by Mrs O. M. Bennion and later in 1970 by Mrs Thompson. Another very valuable member of the committee in its early days was Mr Reggie Fulton who was a tower of strength in raising funds and recruiting members particularly from local schools.

The League of Friends grew rapidly and performed an invaluable service in providing funds and also acting as an important link between the hospital and the general public. The main fund raising events were the twice-yearly fairs which were held at Winchester Road in the spring and at Bursledon in the autumn. A regular attender at the former was Dr Horace King, M.P. for Itchen and Speaker of the House of Commons. At the Autumn fair there was usually an exhibition of painting by the children in the Annexe some of which reached a very high standard. Starting on a relatively modest scale with gifts of knitted garments, toys, television, out-door play equipment, etc the Friends soon undertook more ambitious projects. In collaboration with the ‘Elfin’ School of Dancing and local W.I.s, they decorated and furnished the ‘Mothers Room’ at Winchester Rd and later provided large play huts at both Winchester Rd and Bursledon which were also used for nurses recreation in the evenings.

They also redecorated and furnished hospital chapel as a memorial to Peter Lynch the young son of a member of the hospital staff. On a more personal level the Friends provided a tea trolley for visitors at Bursledon on Sunday afternoons as well as canteen workers and ‘hostesses’ for out-patients also ‘play ladies’ and librarians in the wards. On occasions too, in response to appeals from matron, members of the League would temporarily take over duties in the kitchen or on the wards when there was a staff crisis. Later the Friends turned part of their attention to providing major medical equipment such as piped oxygen in the wards and an image intensifier X- ray. Since the move to the General Hospital in 1974 the Friends have continued to support the Children’s Unit there and at Bursledon until it closed. Visitors to Bursledon could not fail to notice two large play items in the grounds; one was an almost life sized steam engine presented by apprentices at Hawker Siddely and the other an enormous boot-house from the Eastleigh Carnival.

Mention must also be made of the ‘Jackdaw Fund’, This was money collected by the jackdaws in their aviary in East Park. The birds would take coins of all denominations from visitors and place them in a container. They started collecting in 1948 and by 1955 had taken 38441 different coins averaging over £4 per week. This money was presented to the hospital each year, over many years, by Mr Moody their keeper and usually put to the purpose of purchasing some desirable item of equipment; in 1957 he presented a £400 for an incubator.

PAEDIATRICS IN WESSEX

It is not possible to follow the development of the Children’s Hospital in the N.H.S. separately from that of paediatrics in the Region generally

The first step towards establishing a paediatric service in Wessex was the appointment of Dr George Ormiston as Paediatrician in February 1947 with responsibilities both at he Southampton Children’s and Royal Hampshire county Hospitals. His salary was to be £500 each from Southampton and Winchester. The term “Paediatrician” was quite new to this country at this time, having been introduced from North America in the thirties. It is a curious fact that although many children’s hospitals were founded in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century only a handful of doctors in this country were specialising entirely in childhood illness prior to World War II.

At their London H.Q. in November 1949 the Regional Board made three simultaneous appointments viz:- Dr John Moseley to the Portsmouth and Isle of Wight districts, Dr A.P. Norman to Bournemouth, Dorset and Salisbury, and myself to Southampton. Winchester and Alton.

Dr Moseley’s base was at St Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth where he had two large upstairs wards without washbasins, in an old fashioned block. He had a further 20 children’s beds at Portsmouth Royal Hospital. Like ourselves he was excluded from access to the neonates in the maternity department for several years. At Ryde in the Isle of Wight there were 20 children’s beds in the care of Dr A Miller. Dr Moseley paid weekly visits there and also to the neonates at Newport.

In Bournemouth, Dr Norman had two very gloomy children’s wards in the ex-Poor-law institution at Christchurch. He held out-patient clinics at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Boscombe and at the Cornelia Cottage Hospital at Poole. He also had beds and clinics in the Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester and at the Weymouth and District Hospital. In Salisbury he had a ward at the ex-U.S. Army hutted hospital at Odstock with an O.P. clinic at the General Infirmary.

As well as the Children’s Hospital in Southampton and the Bursledon Annexe, Dr Ormiston and I had a small children’s ward of about 25 beds, in a separate annexe, at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester. We did not at first have access to the newborn in the Maternity Unit at the General Hospital. At the time many obstetricians were unwilling to hand over the care of the neonates to paediatricians and I must confess that I personally had had practically no training or experience in neonatology when I was appointed. However, in Winchester, Dr John Penny and Mr Phillip Mitchell were very willing to give us the run of their nurseries and we established a happy and, I think, efficient service there. Unfortunately this happy state of affairs at Winchester came to an abrupt end when Dr Penny had to retire early for health reasons and his successor did not hold with paediatricians caring for “his” babies. A bitter dispute ensued which, in spite of strong support from the Regional Board, we lost. In the meantime Mr Knowlton and Mr Kilgour at Southampton had relented and we were now involved, though at first only partially, at the Maternity Unit.

Within a year of his appointment Dr Norman left to join the staff of Great Ormond Street and we in Southampton covered his area for several months until Dr David Beynon was ready to take over. Dr George Crawshaw who had been our first registrar, took over West Dorset as temporary paediatrician. He held this post until December 1955 when Dr David Vulliamy was appointed.

The Wessex Region seceded from the S.W. Metropolitan Region in 1959 having its headquarters In Winchester with the dynamic Dr John Revans as Senior Administrative Medical Officer. Dr Neville Butler was appointed to take over the Salisbury district from Dr Beynon as well as Swindon, which had been separated off from the Oxford Region.

We in Southampton again had to cover Bournemouth and Poole during Dr Beynon’s long illness though Dr Pamela Davies acted as locum for some of the time and again after his tragic death. Dr Beynon was replaced in Bournemouth and East Dorset in September 1961 by Dr Michael Simpkiss.

Dr Butler resigned in 1963 to join the staff at Great Ormond Street and Dr Ormiston retired in the same year, This seemed to be an opportune time to reorganise the paediatric service in central Wessex. Under the new arrangement Dr John Greaves from Teeside took over Winchester with some sessions at Southampton and Dr Hughes Davies took over Salisbury with sessions at Winchester and Southampton, while I concentrated mainly at Southampton with some sessions at Salisbury. The object of this reorganisation was intended to give each paediatrician a place at the Southampton Children’s Hospital while providing a second string at each of the district hospitals to cover off-duty, but it was a somewhat cumbersome arrangement and Dr Hughes Davies soon decided to relinquish his sessions at Winchester. Dr Lilian Jones took on Swindon in 1964.

During the fifties I had established peripheral out-patient clinics in Lymington, Basingstoke, Andover and Hythe. Soon after his appointment, Dr Greaves improved the cover at Basingstoke and Andover and started a new clinic at Alton. At Portsmouth Dr George Lewis was appointed in July 1965 to support Dr Moseley and in December 1969 Dr Terry MacIntosh was appointed to Basingatoke with some sessions at Winchester, In 1973 he was joined by Dr Judith Darmady whose contract also included some sessions in Community Paediatrics; the first such contract in Wessex and perhaps in the U.K.. The importance of maintaining professional ties with our colleagues stimulated the formation of the S. W. Metropolitan Paediatric Club early in the 1950s. Meetings were held at the various centres of the Region. However, with the independence of Wessex, which was unique at the time in not having a medical school, loyalties tended to change and close links were forged with Bristol. Prof Victor Neal and Dr John Apley were particularly helpful and welcoming. Most paediatricians from Wessex joined the South West Paediatric Club which held two meetings each year, the winter one in Bristol/Bath and the summer one at a peripheral centre, We hosted the summer meeting of the club in 1967. It was not until about 1968 that there were enough paediatricians in Wessex to justify the founding of our own club.

The establishment of the Wessex Medical School in 1971 and the appointment of Dr Colin Normand as Professor of Child Health at Southampton opened a new chapter for paediatrics in the region. Students were to obtain a significant portion of their clinical experience at various regional centres and many of the consultant paediatricians were given the titles of ‘Honorary Clinical Tutor’.

Various specialised services were developed on a Regional basis though few were particularly orientated towards children.

Mr John Atwell’s appointment in 1969 marked the beginning of a Regional Paediatric Surgical service, which was to be widely developed.

The regional Orthopaedic service was based on Lord Mayor Trainers Hospital at Alton. Although included in both Dr Ormiston’s and my own contracts we never succeeded in establishing a footing in that hospital.

The Cardio-thoracic service was based on the Chest (Western) Hospital and cardioiogists held peripheral clinics throughout the region often in conjunction with local paediatricians.

Children for Plastic Surgery and those with severe burns were treated at the Regional Unit at Odstock. Other children with unusual or difficult problems continued to be referred to London and other centres.

I am very grateful to my colleagues Dr Mary Capes and Dr Leslie Bartlet for providing the following accounts of the development of the Child Psychiatric Services in our area,

“The Development of the Child Psychiatry and Child Guidance Service in Hampshire” by Dr Mary Capes.

Introduction.

These recollections stretch back over a period of more than 50 years and are inevitably a bit hazy but an attempt has been made to describe the start of the Child Psychiatric and Child Guidance Services in the Region, how they developed as a result of war-time demands, and how this led to the establishment of a comprehensive service with particular reference to the set up which evolved in the Southampton Children’s Hospital.

General Background.

Training in Child Psychiatry with it’s special emphasis on team work with educational psychologists and psychiatric social workers first became possible in the twenties at the London Child Guidance Training Centre funded in the beginning largely by the Commonwealth Centre of the U.S.A. Paediatricians, until the mid-forties, had to receive their training in the U.S.A. so the American influence at the time was strong in both newly fledged disciplines. Child psychiatry at first (rather like the young cuckoo in it’s varied nests) could be established as part of a Mental Treatment Dept as it was in Portsmouth in 1937, or in clinics, generally known as Child Guidance Clinics (on the American pattern), which were beginning to be set up by Local Authorities, as in Southampton, which also was first established in 1937. There were no other such facilities in the Wessex Region and with the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 even the Southampton clinic was closed and Dr Sybil Yates, who ran it, took an appointment elsewhere. However with the outbreak of World War II and the expectation of heavy bombing, children were evacuated from the cities to the countryside in large numbers coming to Hampshire from Portsmouth and Southampton as well as from London and, as billetting officers became increasingly aware of the numbers of children who failed to settle happily in their foster homes and were disturbed by the experience, they demanded help from the Hampshire County Medical Officer. He contacted the Mental Health Emergency Committee (based in Reading) and they advised the appointment of a psychiatric social worker and Miss Marion Opie took on the job. She visited the hostels, mostly in sizeable private houses which had been commandeered, and which housed children who were difficult to billet in foster homes, and it soon became evident to her that the help of a child psychiatrist and an educational psychologist was also needed. I was approached, and it made sense to transfer my work from Portsmouth to Hampshire, which I did in 1942 in company with Miss Wills, an educational psychologist. The gap left in Portsmouth was filled during the war years by Dr Mildred Creak of Great Ormond Street Hospital, who worked there part-time. She also succeeded in setting up a small in-patient unit at St James Mental Hospital

Over in Hampshire we were offered two attic rooms in the Castle, Winchester as our H.Q. and we proceeded to build up 9 centres for diagnostic and treatment purposes scattered throughout the County - these were, apart from Winchester (where two Portsmouth Grammar schools were billeted), at Romsey, Basingstoke, Kingsclere, Highclere Castle (with the toddler evacuees without mothers!), Totton, Lyndhurst, Petersfield and Clanfield. These centres, which were attended about once a fortnight, were either based on hostels or were at ordinary school clinics.

Over the years from 1942-46 the evacuee population steadily decreased but G.P,s, teachers and social workers had become familiar with the service and were beginning to refer local children. By the end of World War II the clinics had really become permanent fixtures, organised by the L.A. The war-time conditions had given a great impetus to Child Psychiatric and C.G. work, speedy decisions and flexibility were called for too and the experience gained of disturbed children being admitted to short-term residential centres proved invaluable. In the past, in the more extreme cases, the only placement for such children had been in the adult wards of Mental Hospitals, which was clearly undesirable, but no alternative presented itself.

By 1948 the Southampton authority decided to open their C,G. clinic again and invited me to run it - which invitation I accepted in the hope that commitments would be less in a Borough than in a County. Just after this, still in 1948, and much more important, the National Health Service was established, and doctors came under contracts to Regional Boards, with their futures more secure. In our region we were supervised by the South West Metropolitan Hospital Board, with the late Sir John Revans as our dynamic and supportive Senior Administrative Medical Officer. The late Prof Sir Alan Moncrieff, taking advantage of new N.H.S. possibilities wrote to all the children’s hospitals and paediatric units in the U.K. at that time advising the appointment of a Child Psychiatrist to the staff wherever possible, Southampton Children’s Hospital was sympathetic to this proposal: the post was advertised on a part-time basis and I was appointed late in 1948, with continuing responsibility for the L.A. clinic as well.

The Childrens Hospital.

This appointment although it was good to be back in the medical field, involved me once more in an entirely new method of working: I was as it were out on a limb, the premises being much too limited to house a team. If the children I was asked to see lived in the Borough, it was possible to refer them on for full investigation and, if necessary, prolonged treatment at the Health Centre, but for children from the County a flexible and modified type of treatment was often necessary. There was also considerable difficulty in the use of beds; if one wanted to admit a patient whenever beds were in short supply my patients understandably, had to make way for emergencies however disruptive it might be to them. This ceased to be a problem when in 1952, Dr Christopher Haffner was appointed to Portsmouth to plan and operate a special unit with in-patient and out- patient facilities for disturbed children and their parents. These points apart, much that was interesting and experimental was tried out at the hospital, largely initiated as a result of the co-operative attitude of the paediatricians. A joint round took place regularly at Bursledon when I accompanied Dr Williamson, and also a monthly psychosomatic clinic was held by both of us and, largely owing to the fact that the two out—patient consulting rooms had an intercommunicating door, a child could be given an (almost) immediate psychiatric interview at the paediatrician’s request, or be seen by both consultants togethe, thus saving a second journey for long-distance travellers.

Possibly most interesting of all the combined activities was the presentation of cases from time to time at the monthly clinical meetings when G.P.s, young doctors and nurses attending could be given some further insight into psychological problems and their treatability

Teenagers were not seen at the Children’s Hospital beyond the age of 16, and there were fewer referrals in this age group but they were often considerably disturbed. When in-patient treatment seemed advisable they were admitted to Leigh House in Chandlers Ford. This was a special unit for adolescents which the Regional Board had set up when the building became available (it was previously used for treating women with TB.). Dr W. Allchin and Dr Rosenberg were appointed in 1961 to run the unit which was conveniently near to Southampton and Winchester.

It became noticeable as the years passed that more girls than boys were referred to the Children’s Hospital, mainly suffering from psychosomatic disorders such as feeding problems, asthma and anxiety states whereas more boys, many presenting with behaviour disorders, were referred to the L.A. Child Guidance Centre, a number coming from the Juvenile Court, thereby indicating a need for both types of facility since behaviour problems would be largely inappropriate seen in a hospital setting

Visiting

The whole question of children being visited by their families and of infants and toddlers being accompanied into hospital by their mothers was coming under public discussion at the time of my appointment. The late Sir James Spence had reported in 1946 on his Babies Hospital where he had had twenty years experience of admitting mothers as well, and Dr and Mrs Pickerill in New Zealand reported very favourably on their plastic surgery unit where they had admitted mothers to counter cross infection. They had found this beneficial in a number of ways. These reports coupled with the research of Dr John Bowlby on separation anxiety and the late James Robertson into the emotional after effects of hospital admission, which were in their initial stages, seemed to make a lot of sense. I raised both the issue of visiting and of mother’s being admitted fairly soon after being appointed, appreciating that there would be great difficulty in achieving the latter owing to the very limited space in the hospital, but the former was discussed at a number of medical committee meetings. Dr Ormiston, who was the first paediatrician to be appointed to the staff in 1947, had come fresh from the U.S.A. and was seriously worried about the degree of infection and the high mortality rate in the wards and was understandably apprehensive about any infection being introduced from the outside world. It was finally decided by Mr Richardson, the Children’s Surgeon, who was Chairman of the committee, that a vote should be taken, which resulted in an equal number of votes for and against, leaving him to cast his vote – in favour. At first the visiting was somewhat restricted but as the worst fears failed to be realised the rules became increasingly relaxed. Some doctors found the virtual pandemonium after the subdued atmosphere in the wards difficult to take but not the children! I must say that though these discussions involved strongly held opinions, the final outcome was accepted without the least acrimony. Several years later in 1959, two rooms were set aside so that some mothers, eventually, were able to come into the hospital with their children.

It might be of interest in this context to make a brief reference to a W.H.O.study group. Dr Begg the medical director of the European Office asked me, in 1951, to organise a small conference or study group on the care of children in hospital which was to include the respective roles of paediatricians and child psychiatrists, the coordination of their work and the inter-relation of somatic and psychological processes in sick children. The meeting took place in Stockholm where it was hosted by Prof Wallgren of the Children’s Clinic at the Karolinska Hospital, with Sir Alan Moncrieff chairing the clinical proceedings. The Paediatricians and Child Psychiatrists who presented these had had experience in close cooperation together and included Dr R. Bonham-Carter and Dr Soddy from UCH. London, Prof Milton Senn and Dr Solnit from the U.S.A. and two pairs of Swedish doctors,and the delegates were largely drawn from Scandinavian Countries. It was a lively and useful meeting and in 1955 a report entitled “The Child in Hospital” was published by WHO, and was widely distributed.

As a final thought I look back with pleasure at the memory of the murals in the anaesthetic room at the Children’s Hospital which were painted by Miss M. Wilson, a Winchester artist. These made a rather bare and forbidding room into an attractive one and the children enjoyed counting the colourful balloons as they gradually lost consciousness,

Conclusion.

I said in the beginning that these recollections would inevitably be somewhat hazy, but one looks back on those years spent at the Children’s Hospital (however ramshackle it might have appeared to the architectural eye, and however limited it’s scope), a time of excellent rapport between members of staff, and with it a sense of achievement. In the child psychiatric field a lot was owed to the foresight and dynamism of Sir John Revans whom one found easily accessible and open to suggestions, ready to try to plan anything that led to the greater well-being of patients, Did he appreciate however that “Small could be beautiful” in the sense that some of the close liaison between members of the staff would be lost in a larger hospital?

CHILD PSYCHIATRY AND THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL 1965-1975 by Dr Leslie Bartlet

Dr Mary Copes retired in 1965 and her place was taken by Dr Leslie Bartlet. He was joined by Dr Brian Crossley in 1969, Both held parallel child guidance appointments and as a consequence there were few “boundary” problems between hospital and community. This resulted in fully integrated services whichon the national scene, were quite rare then, but standard now,

As referrals increased, the need to provide treatment as well as diagnostic services built up. When temporary out—patient accommodation was erected at the back of the main hospital more rooms and space was allotted to the child psychiatrists Slowly the elements of a child psychiatric team came together. A psychiatric social worker from Southampton Child Guidance clinic was seconded on a sessional basis to help, but the arrangement did not work very well and Miss Jeanne Christie was appointed as Paediatric Social Worker in 1969. She agreed to work with the child psychiatrists as well as the paediatricians and surgeons. A first rate system of teamwork developed. The team was further strengthened whets a part- time clinical psychologist. Mr Christopher Johnson was appointed. Besides working in the team, Mr Johnson developed an assessment, advisory, and treatment service of his own and he quietly established links with the Local Education Authority and the local educational psychologists (a task which, at one stage, was by no means easy). Finally, in 1970, an occupational therapist was appointed, thus rounding off the team.

The late sixties were marked by a growing interest in the needs of children with chronic illness and handicap. When Dr Williamson set up a multi-disciplinary assessment service psychiatric staff played a part in this from the start. The service turned out to be a gateway to new areas of work; in particular mental handicap and the emotional disturbances affecting families with handicapped children. The enrichment of the staff with psycho-social skills knitted in well with Dr Williamson’s imaginative use of the facilities at Bursledon Hospital where the need for beds for children with chronic physical illness was falling off. He and his fellow paediatricians, Dr Tom Hughes-Davies and Dr John Greaves, began to “share” cases with the two child psychiatrists. Bursledon came to play an important role in the unravelling of complex problems that often presented with psychosomatic symptomatology - Bursledon Hospital School under the headship of Mrs Brenda Marshall became involved. From that point on it became possible to observe and treat children from medical, social, family, emotional, behavioural and educational standpoints at the same time. Children were customarily admitted for one to four weeks and parents were encouraged to visit daily. In the early Seventies this system, hinging on short-term admissions, was unfashionable; indeed faintly heretical. Bowlby’s views held sway and hospitals were seen as emotionally dangerous institutions. Great care was taken to maintain close family contacts during admissions. When pre- school children were admitted their mothers usually came in as well. Older children had their parents visiting (or phoning regularly). No emotional damage resulted and the positive consequences were often significant. Particularly good results were obtained with such conditions as enuresis, encopresis, non-specific abdominal pains and headaches, hysterical dysfunctions. sleep disorders and behavioural disorders associated with diabetes, epilepsy and asthma.

This way of working made great demands on nursing staff. Considerable reorientation was required. Nurses were expected to retain their traditional paediatric skills and at the same time become much more flexible, dynamically aware and emotionally involved. In the course of time “Bursledon” became an important element in the child health resources of the district. Although Bursledon Hospital was closed in 1966, the working practices developed there live on. Bursiedon House on the General Hospital site is it’s worthy and valued successor.

MEMORIES

Mention of the old Children’s Hospital to those with past connections with the place, whether they were patients, parents or members of staff, always brings back old memories, mostly happy ones. These help to add flesh to the bare bones of a more factual historical record. Space permits only a fraction of these being recorded here.

Ts & As in 1913.

Mrs Brenda Drew recalls:- “It must have been in late 1912 or early 1913 that my sister (4 years my senior) and I had our tonsils and, I think, adenoids removed. We had been well prepared; we would not feel anything, in fact our next-door neighbour had had an in-growing toenail removed. She had gone to sleep and had a wonderful dream. This caused my trouble ..... A jolly ‘Auntie’ was the moral support of all the children concerned. I remember waiting in the room next to what must have been the operating theatre. We were all in our white petticoats and wore rubber bathing-hats but I cannot remember whether they were put on in the operating theatre or before. The first little girl to go in started to cry, but as ‘Auntie’ assured us that they were only washing her face and a lot of little girls didn’t like having their faces washed, we all felt very superior - we weren’t babies, I so well remember nurses going into that room carrying what to me looked like vegetable dishes full of boiling water and warning us to keep out of the way and telling our parents that it was not a serious operation but a very dirty one - I now imagine these must have contained the sterilised instruments for each patient. When my turn came I went in happily and as I was “going to sleep and dream”, I curled up on the operating table ... I was straightened out on my back and had an evil smelling thing put in my mouth! I realise now that the thing was to hold my mouth open and the unpleasant smell was gas or whatever it was called. The next I knew was waking up on the floor of whatever room it was where we were collected to go home. This was the moment of heart breaking disappointment, It was all over and I didn’t dream! .... We were eventually lifted in to a horse and cab and home to bed.”

Appendicectomy in 1926

Mrs Dlive Jackson remembers:- .... “At the age of 8 yrs I had my appendix removed. I was rushed in at about 10.30 p.m., and by midnight had been successfully operated on. The operation was performed by Mr Nightingale assisted by my own family doctor, Dr Powell. I can remember that while convalescent we children had to roll bandages; whether it was really needed or just to keep us out of mischief I do not know. I also remember getting a severe telling off for complaining that my egg was hard boiled .... parents used to bring in eggs so that we could have nice new laid ones.”

Another tonsillectomy in 1936

Mrs Pellow recalls:- .... “I was taken up with half a dozen or so other children to a very pleasant ward ... the student nurses who were very young and very pleasant came and practiced bandaging on us. Next morning we were all given a rubber bathing-hat and a nightdress to put on. Wrapped in blankets we were led along to the lift and thence to a small sort of waiting room. I was the first to go in ... and had to lie down on the table and all around the room in glass cases were the most fearsome looking instruments . I was utterly terrified. Eventually some nurses and doctors came in and a sort of mask was put over my face ... I remember waking up with a very sore throat and being very sick ... next day we were all taken down to out-patients where our parents were waiting to take us home.”

During the ‘Blitz’

Little Jean Mudge was 5 years old in 1940 ... “I was seriously ill with peritonitis and too ill to be moved when there was an air raid. Mum stayed all day and often had to stay the nights during air raids. She had a mattress to throw over the cot sides to protect me from flying glass.”

An unhappy mother

Mrs Sheriton “... had the boy circumcised when he was five months (1947). They just took him from me and told us mothers to come back in a few hours time. I had nowhere to go... all I could do was to pace up and down the driveway and hear the babies screaming. In 1955 “our son aged 8 was rushed in with a burst appendix. I was told he was gravely ill, but to go home and get some sleep - no waiting rooms for parents there or sitting by their bedside. Back we came home an hour’s bus ride, no cars or telephones those days. The anguish of waiting for the police to bring bad news ... for three days he did not know us but he then started trying to pull down all gadgets connected to him. He got very attached to a sweet nurse, she always sat on his bed reading to him ... he was home after 5 weeks”

A mother’s memories of Ward I in 1956

Mrs Day rushed her 2-year-old daughter to Casualty unconscious with convulsions. She was then admitted. “I was agreeably surprised when I was asked whether I’d like to stay with her during the day... Judy was in hospital on Mothering Sunday and the nursing staff left smell bunches of Spring flowers on each child’s locker as a gift from the little ones to their mothers; this lovely action has remained in my mind ever since.” ... Another sign of good hygiene was the washing down of glass partitions. ‘‘I watched two nurses wash these partitions with disinfectant from ceiling to floor (and they were high rooms) with long handled brooms.”

The first mother to use the Parents Room.

Mrs Lowth recalls:— “I spent Christmas 1959 in the hospital with my eldest child aged 6 who had become severely dehydrated with pernicious vomiting ... Charles was so poorly that he was in a small side ward under charge of that marvellous nurse Sister Boyce. Charles, as did all children, adored her. It was felt advisable ... that I should stay in the hospital and I was actually the first parent to stay in the new Parents Room up in the attic. It was hardly finished and very sparsely furnished then. My husband would come to the hospital and sit with Charles for a few hours to allow me to get home to organise Christmas with the other children ... Charles rallied and thanks to the wonderful nursing he pulled through ... on Christmas Eve ... the nurses invited me to sing carols with them under the illuminated Christmas tree which stood outside the front of the hospital. I was then very pregnant so one of the nurses lent me her cloak

Bursledon in 1956

Sandra Walker aged 11 was in Bursledon with rheumatic fever for 4 months. “We used to go for walks, 10 minutes at first, but increasing by 10 minutes at intervals. We were taken down by the river, through the fields, which was a great experience. If we felt we had run about too much, we used to rush to put our wrists under a cold tap in the hope of bringing our pulse rate down before the nurse could check it. We kept silkworms, which fed on the leaves of the mulberry tree by the entrance. We used to wind the fine silk from the cocoons. Sometimes, at night, my bed would be wheeled into the hall because I kept the other children awake by talking too much. I still do!” Sandra’s elder sister, Pat, was also a patient in Bursledon in 1949 she remembers being warned that if you went upstairs you would encounter the big black washerwomen who would grab you and take you away.

Hospital Ghosts

Most hospitals have their ghosts and Southampton Children’s was no exception. Several nurses recall hearing footsteps on the stairs outside Ward II while on night duty but Mary who was a S.E.N.. at the time had a more frightening experience. “I was busy with babies feeds at 3 am, on the Gastro-enteritis ward. All was very still in the cubicle; the street light was as bright as ever, when a very eerie atmosphere developed. I felt intensely aware of something very frightening and sinister behind me. The window there overlooked the old Vicarage lawn but I dared not turn in that direction for fear of what I might see. When I asked the sister on Surgical (Sister Hodges), when taking up the night report, if she was aware of this happening, I was a bit surprised to be told never to look over the next garden if this atmosphere occurred again as there had been some terrible happening in the past. I think she said that someone had been murdered and some horrible apparition had been seen there since.”

Casualty staff to the rescue.

A memorable event occurred in 1957 when one afternoon an emergency call was received that a man working on the first floor of a new building up the road had been seriously injured when a reinforced concrete girder snapped and two of the steel rods had transfixed him through his abdomen. Sister Jenny Tutcher and Dr Bridget Jepson immediately rushed to assist. They had to make a very precarious climb across the framework of girders to give first aid, The man made a complete recovery.

Nurse Coady and Sister Tutor’s Cat.

Miss Morgan remembers when her tortoiseshell cat ‘Bunty’ disappeared one evening and was located high up in a tree near the nurses’ home. Flo Coady, dressed to go home, climbed a ladder with a plate of fish, which she held up at arm’s length. In grabbing the cat she dropped the plate of fish. Later when travelling home in the bus she was aware that other passengers were commenting on her but it was not until she had reached home that she found a large slice of fish still sitting on her shoulder!

The Newly-wed Houseman.

When we appointed Dr James Scobie as R. M.O. we had no idea that he was about to get married ... “I shall never forget the day I arrived at the Children’s Hospital. It was January 1st 1962, the day after my wedding and it was snowing. Bursledon seemed a very gloomy place. My wife went back to her work in London the following day, and I started working with chronically ill children.

The Children’s Hospital itself was very busy, especially in winter time. There were two consultant paediatricians. Dr George Ormiston was a Scot with a fund of amusing stories and a reputation for severity. Dr David Williamson was more progressive. His life seemed very varied; one moment visiting gipsy children under a tarpaulin in the forest, the next attending the offspring of grand lords in great hooses interspersed with visits to hospitals in Winchester and Alton.

There was a very competent registrar, Dr Eric Jones, and a succession of house physicians The junior doctors shared a rota involving working at Bursledon, the Children’s Hospital and the infectious fever unit at the Chest Hospital. My wife used to come down on alternate week-ends when I was on duty, and we were always getting into trouble with the hospital authorities; hanging washing out to dry (forbidden), and complaining about the guest supplement, which included a fee for having someone else in the one narrow bed, although not even a second towel was provided.

At the beginning of March we hired, through the almoner, a caravan which we kept, with a licence from the Verderers, in an open meadow on the upper reaches of the river Beaulieu, south of Ashurst. It was isolated with only occasional walkers passing by, though ponies would wake us up at night, scratching themselves on the corners of the caravan.

Meanwhile I was learning a lot about sick children. There had been some cases of smallpox brought by visiting seamen, so there was a big vaccination campaign. Two children with eczema developed the generalised form of vaccinia from the vaccination and both died. The only other deaths during the seven months that I worked at the Children’s Hospital were from leukaemia, effective treatment for which was just beginning.

The house physicians assisted the visiting surgeons, Mr Richardson and Mr Rowntree operating on appendicitis, pyloric stenosis and hernias and that made a break from the routine of ward rounds and clinics and was a useful preparation for my next job as a medical officer in Uganda.”

The Head Teacher remembers the Bursledon Hospital School.

“The 1944 Education Act for the first time mentioned ALL children, which meant that the generous voluntary work of educating sick children became the responsibility of the local education authorities.

Hampshire Education Authority responded to a request from the Hospital Management Committee and provided a school at the newly opened Bursledon Annexe Initially there was a headteacher and one other full time teacher with some part- time help for the nursery age children. In 1962 the staff increased to three full time teachers.There were three wards downstairs, which, with the moving of a few beds, could be organised into secondary, junior and infant classes. The staff room and storeroom were on the very top floor and most of the necessary equipment was carried up and down daily. The school hours were from 10 a.m. to noon and 2 pm. till 3 p.m. This gave the nurses time for treatments and the children a midday rest period. The early finish was for the benefit of visitors who were encouraged to come out of school hours. The head teacher was given a daily ‘schoolbook’ which was a useful record of the state health of the children. There seemed to be little intteraction between nursing and school staff.

There were three head teachers during the first fifteen years: I was the fourth being appointed in 1967 and staying until 1989 and it was during tny time that major changes took place. A new position was created by the Hampshire Education Authority, and Mrs P. Clifford was appointed Administrator for Special Education and, at the same time, Mr Freddie Green first Advisor for Special Education. These two people were a formidable and much respected team. They gave me support and encouragement for my philosophy and future plans for the school. (Staff were able to attend in- service training, including, for some, a year of advanced academic study at Southampton University.)

One of the early changes brought about by the new administrator was the creation of a Governing Body for the school as apparently there had been no legally constituted team for the head teacher to approach with new ideas. Within the early years, Mr A Moody of the local firm of yacht builders was elected chairman, and he supported and guided the school for twenty years.

However the most important change was the advancement of medical science which altered thinking with regard to hospital care for sick children. These changes showed in many ways. Most children at Bursledon were ambulant and wore their own clothes The beautiful grounds were used both in school and free time. By the mid 1970s the school hours were those of a normal school and the children were taught in a separate school building provided by the education authority. A new department of the school was later opened in the Paediatric wards at the General Hospital.

At Bursledon more and more children with emotional problems were admitted. The variety of people working with these children altered the style of teaching and nursing. Psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers emphasised the need to discuss each child carefully before action was taken. Teaching staff were drawn more and more into the working life of the hospital. The appointment of Dr Jean Davis as clinical assistant responsible for Bursledon was a great asset. She held weekly meetings with the Sister in Charge and the head teacher plus anyone else with a professional interest in the children, This meeting was vital. The increase in inter-disciplinary meetings and the need to produce written reports meant the school needed proper secretarial help. The head teacher was also given extra teaching staff so that liaison time was possible without depriving the children. The school was able to take more professional visitors on a regular basis. These were the good years.

The last chapter of the school at Bursledon was being written. The numbers of children coming there fell below acceptable levels. There were staff cuts and those who were left were dispirited. Even so, those remaining put on a lively party to mark the closure in February 1989.

Over the years Bursledon had provided a truly loving atmosphere to promote recovery. The school had played it’s part in caring and restoring the children’s confidence, preparing them for their return home. They were matured and helped by experiences which no other place could have given them,

There are so many people who remember their time there; patients and staff alike. There are stories of dens in the bamboo clump or under the mulberry tree. Do you remember the numbers of children who got stuck up trees? Who sneaked into the girls ward one night and decorated them intimately with toothpaste? Who climbed the front of the building and alarmed the teachers quietly marking books in the turret room? In the spring there were the inevitable rows of graves of buried fledglings with suitable floral tributes. How many town children were delighted to see their first goldfinch or the old fox lying in the sun. So many of them were amazed to play free on the grass; often families would picnic on the lawn and one Dutch family actually camped in the grounds while their child recovered from meningitis. It has been said by the more articulate that despite the illness and pain, being in Bursledon was a magical time.

THE LAST LAP

In 1962 Regional plans for the future development of the hospitals in Southampton were published showing the Board’s intention of developing the Royal South Hants and the General hospitals with the eventual absorption of the smaller hospitals, including the Children’s.

I was invited to join a small working party at the Regional Beard’s office in Winchester to consider plans for a standard Wessex district hospital. At our first meeting it immediately became very clear that the plans were primarily those for a new hospital on the General Hospital site and that the Children’s Unit was to be on the top floor of the main block. We had to accept that the Children’s Hospital was very out-of-date and that it was unrealistic for us to hope that it could be modernised sufficiently to keep up with current technological advances. We pleaded in vain that the children’s unit should be in a separate building on the site but the plans were already so far advanced that we were only able to make minor alterations.

When it became apparent that we would shortly be leaving Winchester Rd, an elaborate plan was put forward by the medical staff to convert the buildings, including Oakfield, into a comprehensive centre for the assessment and care of children with handicap. The plan included the transfer of the facilities being provided at Bursledon, which would then be closed. The authorities turned down the plan on the grounds that the boiler would not be up to the job! (It packed up three weeks before the final move!). It is satisfactory to know that just such a unit has now (1989) been established in the old Group Offices on the General Hospital site.

Long before the final day a commissioning team was set up under Miss Irwin to ensure that the move should be as painless as possible and, in the event, their hard labours were well rewarded. We had a farewell party for Miss Craddock on May 16th and the actual move took place on May 20th 1974 without a hitch thus bringing to an end ninety years of service to the children of Southampton during which time the tiny village hospital had grown up to become an important centre of paediatric expertise, research, and teaching.

The new buildings at the General Hospital were formally opened on December 6th 1974 by H.M. the Queen, who subsequently toured the Children’s Unit on Level G of the East Ward Block. Although there can be no doubt that the new unit is much more capacious and has many more facilities, those of us who were privileged to serve there, will cast an occasional nostalgic glance backwards to the old hospital which was such a friendly, happy and caring place.

THE SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

Postcript: The old hospital building was demolished in the early 1980s and Brixedone House, Bursledon sold in 1989.

APPENDIX 1

Medical Staff Dr W. Maclean C.B. M.D. Consulting Physician 1884 - 1897 Sir T. Longmore C.B. F.R.C.S. Consulting Surgeon. 1884 - 1895 Dr C. G. Beaumont Hon. Medical Officer 1884 - 1892 Dr E. T. Chamberlain L.R.C.P. “ “ “ 1884 -1893 Mr J, McLachlan Dental Surgeon 1884 - 1910 Dr J. S. Robertson M.R.C.S. Hon. Medical Officer 1887 - 1890 Dr W. G. Collins Hon. “ “ 1892 - 1897 DR R. O. H. Gwillim L.R.C.P, Hon. “ “ 1894 -1899 Consulting Surgeon 1903 - d.1926 Dr Howard Saunders MB. Hon. Medical Officer 1895 - 1929 Consulting Physician 1929 - d.1961 Dr W. F. Cooper L.R.C.P. Hon. Medical Officer 1898 - 1920 Hon. Consulting Physician 1920 - d 1927 Dr Walter Purvis M.D. Hon. Medical Officer 1900 - F.R,C.S. Hon. Surgeon 1907 -1923 Dr Gillespie. Hon. Medical Officer 1904 - 1938 Hon. Consulting Physician 1938 - d 1944 Mr Guy Robertson Hon. Dental Surgeon 1910 -1913 Mr C. De Foubert “ “ “ 1913 - 1915 Mr E. A. Wolter “ “ “ 1915 - Dr R. J. Vernon Hon. Medical Officer 1914 - 1946 Hon. Consulting Physician 1946 - Mr H. C. Balls Hon. Dental Surgeon 1917-1939 Dr W. Stewart M.B. Hon. Aural Surgeon 1918 - 1925 Consulting Aural Surgeon 1925 - Dr Brogden Hon. Anaesthetist 1920 - 1934 Dr B.Castles Powell Hon. Medical Officer 1919 - 1940 Dr Simpson Hon. Anmesthetist 1921 - 1922 Dr L.W.Howlett Hon. Anaesthetist 1922 -1930 Dr A,D.Maxwell “ “ 1922 - 1927 Mr H. C, G. Nelson M.D. Hon. Surgeon. 1923 -1932 Dr Seager Thomas Hon. Pathologist 1923 -d 1933 Dr H.Castle “ Medical Officer 1924 - 1941 d.1943 Mr Norman McKeith Hon .Aural Surgeon 1925 - 1947 Dr Seager Thomas Hon. Pathologist. 1925 - d.1934 Mrs Ursula De Foubert Hon. Medical Officer 1926 - 1932 Dr G. R, Marshallsay Hon. Medical Officer 1927 - 1947 Dr Norman Aldridge Hon. Electro-therapeutic Physician 1927 - 1929 Dr D. Vincent Rice “ “ “ “ 1929 - 1950 Mr L. A. R. Richardson Hon. Surgeon 1929 - 1967 Mr H. J. May Hon. Ophthalmic surgeon 1929 - 193? Dr H.J.Bower Hon. Physician 1929 - 1950 Dr H. Oakley White “ Anaesthetist 1932 - 1939 “ Physician 1939 - 1950 Dr G. C. Havers “ “ 1933 - Mr Raymond Purvis Hon. Surgeon 1934 - 1938 Mr A. B. Moffat Hon. Ophthalmic surgeon 1937 - Dr A.T. Russell Hon. Anaesthetist 1937 - 1948 S. W. Lytle F.R.C.S Hon. Surgeon 1938 - 1950 Mr A.Russell Assistant Aural Surgeon 1933 - 1961 Dr H. H. Gleave M.R.C.P. Hon. Pathologist 1934 - d. 1952 Dr J. Cann ‘ Hon. Anaesthetist 1938 - Mr S. W. Lytle F.R.C.S. Hon. Surgeon 1938 -1950 Dr N. E. Slaney Hon. Physician 1939 -1950 Mr G. V. Dymott Hon. Dental Surgeon 1939 - Mr W. R. Morgan “ “ “ 1939 -1940 Mr J. J. Sanders “ “ “ 1940 - Mr E. Bacon Hon. Ophthlmic Surgeon 1940 - Mr H. H. Langston F.R.C.S. Hon. Orthopedic Surgeon 1943 - Mr B. Sugden Aural Surgeon 1947 - Dr R. B. Boal Hon. Assistant Radiologist 1947 - Dr Mary Capes Hon. Psychiatrist 1948 - 1965 Dr George Ormiston Paediatrician 1948 - 1963 Mr B. Sugden Hon. Assistant Aural Surgn 1947 - Dr J. Preston Director of Phys, Med. 1948 - 197 Dr W. L. M. Bigby Hon. Anaesthetist 1948 - Dr C. J. Ball Anaesthetist - 1963 Dr A. J. Grimston Cons. Dermatologist 1949? - Dr D. A. J. Wiliamson Cons. Paediatrician 1950 - 1977 Dr S. C. Dobson Cons. Pathologist 1951? - Dr R. D. Caton Cons. Radiologist 1952 - Dr R. House Cons. Anaesthetist 1952 - Mr T. Rowntree Cons. Surgeon 1951 - Dr R. P. W. Shackleton Cons. Anaesthetist 1956 - Dr Joan Guy Cons. Pathologist 1957 - Dr I. W. Caldwell Cons. Dermatologist 1962 - Dr L. B. Bartlet Cons. Psychiatrist 1965 - Dr John Greaves Cons. Paediatrician 1962 - Dr T. H. Hughes-Davis Cons. Paediatrician 1962 - Dr Elspeth Williamson Clinical Geneticist 1963 - Dr F. Brunton. Cons. Radiologist 1965? - Dr Burrows Cons. Radiologist 1965? - Dr L. Langdon Cons. Anaesthetist 1964 - Dr I. Hyde Cons. Radiologist 1965 - Mr J. D. Glanville Cons. E.N.T.Surgeon 1965 - Mr J. H. H. Webster Cons. Surgeon 1966 - Mr J. D. Atwell Cons. Paediatric Surgeon 1968 - Mr Neil Freeman Cons. Paediatric Surgeon 1969 - Dr I. C. S. Normand Professor of Child Health 1971 - Dr John Birkbeck Senior Lecturer 1972 -

Chairmen of Managing Committee. Rev A. D. Burton M.A. Vicar of Shirley. 1884 - 1889 Rev T. W. H. Jacob. “ “ “ 1889 - 1892 Mr H. W. Hay 1892 - 1895 Rev Studholme Wilson 1895 - 1908 Captain J. Henderson 1908 - 1910 Mr Robert Ashby Rector of Millbrook 1910 - 1916 Capt H. B. Elwyn R.N, 1916 - 1927 Mr T. E. Plumer Price 1927 - 1934 Mr Herbert Ashby 1934 - 1938 Mr A. Bedford J.P. 1918 - 1948

Chairmen of House Committee. Mr A Bedford 1948 - 1954 Prof J. E. G. Rayment 1955 - 1958 Dr G. H. Johnson. 1958 - 1959 Miss E. I. L. Wright S.R.N. 1959 - 1960 Dr W. Angus 1960 - 1974

Hon. Secretarys Hon Treasurers. Capt Morton 1884 -1885 Commissary-General Young 1884 - 1889 Mr George Forbes—Bassett 1885 -1893 C.B. 1889 - 1895 Capt.Murton 1893 - 1896 Mr F. Davis Gale 1895 - 1898 Mr Albert Spooner 1896 - 1898 Mr T. Isted. 1898 - 1913 Mr Ellerton Bailey. 1898 - 1899 Mr Albert Spooner 1913 - 1924 Captain Barnar’d H.N. 1899 - 1901 Mr Milne Stewart 1924 - 1929 Mr B.Winn Ford 1901 - 1911 Mr R. A. Mathews 1929 - 1930 Miss Burniston 1911 - 1926 Mr P. J. Harris 1930 - 1938 Mr C. G. Thomas 1938 - 1948 Mr M. H, B. Rumbold Secretarys Miss Ella K.Mattthews 1926 - 1951 Mr Eric Woods 1952 - 1974

Lady Superintendent Later Matron. Miss Davidson. 1884 - 1885 Miss Morgan 1885 - 1889 Miss Hickman 1889 - 1890 Miss Swain 1890 - 1892 Miss Halifax 1892 - 1908 Miss Tomkinson 1908 - 1927 Miss L. Sellars 1927 - 1944 Miss D. Golay 1944 - 1950 Miss J. Laycock 1951 - 1954 Miss E. Dyke 1954 - 1960 Miss E.M.Creed 1960 - 1967 Miss J,Cradock 1967 - 1974

Sister Tutor Miss Morgan 1944 - 1958

Ward Sisters. Ward I Ward II. Out-Patients Gastro-enteris Bursledon Theatre. Puddy Short Hayward Hughes Morgan Upstill Lillington Bowen Brown Trowbridge Sparkes Flower Gibson Tutcher Williams Boyce Hodges Oaks Adams Pyatt Legge Gale Mrs Tatham Coady Flynn Ware Ames Jones

Pharmacists Massage.Electro—therapy. ? ? 1899 - Miss Hounsell Hon Masseuse 1919 Miss Martin 1906 - 1915 Miss Moborly. Hon Masseuse 1923 MissBurniston (Hon Sec.) 1915 - 1918 Miss Shrubsall Masseuse 1927 Miss Cooper—Poole 1930 - 1937 Mrs Thomas. 1931 - 1947 Miss Clark 1937 - 1940 Mrs C.Giabby 1947 - 1949 Miss Gibbs 1940 - 1945 Miss Yeld Miss Stevens 1946 - 1954 Miss Ford Mr Miller 1954 - 1955 Miss Mitchell Mr Yard 1955 - Mrs Tarrant. Miss Tracey 1959 - 1974

Radiographers. Almoner/Social Worker Mrs Thomas 1931 - 1947 Miss Rosamund May 1948 - 1967 Miss Bean Mrs Donald Miss Jeanne Christie 1967 - Mrs Janet Fllis 1962 - 1964 Ann Arscott 1964 Mrs Sandy Read 1967 Elisabeth Nunn 1969 Jenny Bullivant 1971 Miss Diana Claisse Stelle Bowyer Mrs Brenda Danby. Miss Hilary Smith.

Analysis of Admissions and Deaths for the Year 1931

Summary of Medical Cases.

Acidosis ...... 3 Asthma ...... 2 Lymphangitic ...... 1 Anterior poliomyelitis ...... 1 Marasmus ...... 18 Bacilluria...... 2 Meningism...... 1 Bronchitis...... 1 Meningitis ...... 3 Bronchitis and Diphtheria ...... 1 Meningitis and Hydrocephalus...... 1 Catarrhal Jaundice...... 3 Nephritis ...... 1 CerebraI Diplegia...... 1 Neuralgia...... 1 Chorea...... 3 Ophthalmia Neonatorum...... 1 Constipation...... 2 Orchitis ...... 1 Convulsions ...... 9 Pericarditis, Endocarditis, and DebiIity...... 2 Pneumonia ...... 1 Dermatitis and varicella...... 1 Pertussis ...... 1 Diabetes Mellitus...... 1 Pleurisy ...... 3 Diphtheria ...... 1 Pneumonia ...... 30 Dyspepsia ...... 2 Pneumonia and Diphtheria ...... 1 Eczema...... 4 Poisoning ...... 1 Eczema and Abcess ...... 1 Pulmonary Embolus ...... 1 Encephalitis Lethargica...... 2 Pyelitis...... 1 Gastro-Enteritis...... 1 Rheumatism ...... 5 Gastro-Enteritis and Diphtheria ...... 1 Rickets ...... 1 Habit Spasm ...... 1 Scurvy ...... 1 Haematomat{bJI~I...... 3 Teething ...... 1 Haemorrhage...... 1 Tie ...... 1 Herpes Zoster ...... 1 Tuberculosis, AbdomInal ...... 4 Hydrocephalus...... 1 Miliarv ...... 1 Hyperpyrexia...... 2 Pulmonarv...... 1 and Diphtheria ...... 1 Icterus Neonatorum ...... 2 Typhoid and pneumnonia ...... 1 Impetigo...... 1 ____ Intestinal Spasm ...... 1 169 Lymphatic Leukaemia ...... 2

Summary of Surgical Cases.

Abcesses ...... 17 Epiphvsitis ...... 1 Abcesses and Diphtheria ...... 1 Ethmoiditis ...... 2 Accident Cases (excluding Ethmoiditis and Scarlet Fever ...... 1 fractures) ...... 19 Foreign Bodies (Swallowed)...... 3 Adenitis...... 14 Foreign Bodies (other) ...... 2 Appendicitis...... 16 Fractured Skull...... 3 Ascites ...... 1 Fracture and Diphtheria ...... 1 Burns ...... 10 Other Fractures...... 14 Burns and Scarlet Fever ...... 1 Ganglion ...... 1 Cellulitis ...... 3 Hernia .. -...... 16 Cleft Palate ...... 2 Hernia and Undescended Cleft Palate and Hare Lip ...... 1 TesticIe ...... 2 Congenital Dislocation of the Hip (4 cases accounting for Hernia and Varicella...... 1 admissions)...... 16 Hordeolum ...... 1 Concussion ...... 2 Hydrocelce...... 1 Empyema...... 3 Intussusception...... 3 Empyema and Varicella ...... 1 Lymphangioma ...... 1 Mastoiditis ...... 29 Analysis of Admissions and Deaths for the Year 1931 (continued) Summary of SurgicaI Cases—continued. Mastoiditis (Diphtheritic)...... 3 Spina Bifida ...... 1 Naevus...... 13 Synovitis ...... 1 Neoplasrn ...... 1 Talipes Equino Varus...... 1 Onychia ...... 1 Talipes Equino Varus Osteomyelitis ...... 2 and Diphtheria 1 Otitis Media ...... 29 Teeth Extraction 1 Otitis Media (Diphtheritic)...... 2 Tonsils and Adenoids Periostitis ...... 1 606 Periostitis and Morbilli ...... 1 Torticollis and Scarlet Fever ....1 Peritonitis...... 1 Tuberculosis - surgical ...... 3 Phimosis (N.B. – Not including Umbilical Hernia and Scarlet those done in O.P.D.)...... 6 Fever ...... 1 Plastic Operation on Mastoid...... 2 Undescended Testis ...... 3 P]astic Operation on Ear...... 1 Ulceration Vulva...... 1 Psoas Abscess ...... 1 Whitlow ...... 1 Pvloric Stenosis ...... 1 ____ Ranula ...... 1 379

Sebaceous Cyst...... 1 Septum Deflectum ...... 1

Deaths.

Accident Case - Fracture and Marasmus and Gastro-Enteritis...... 2 Internal Injuries ...... 1 Meningitis ...... 3 Acute Gastro-Enteritis ...... 1 Meniingitis and Hvdrocephalus ...... 1 Burns ...... 1 Ophthalmia Neonatorum and Cellulitis, Trunk and lower Toxaemia ...... 1 Limbs ...... 1 Pneumonia and Marasmus ...... 4 Cerebral Diplegia ...... 1 Pneumonia ...... 1 Congenital Deformity ...... 1 Peritonitis ...... 1 Convulsions ...... 1 Pulmonary Embolism ...... 1 Encephalitis ...... 1 Pyelitis (admitted 1930)...... 1 Hare-lip and Cleft Palate, Pvloric Stenosis ...... 1 Marasmus ...... 1 Shock, following Gastrotomy...... 1 Heart Disease and Pneumonia ...... 1 Spina Bifida ...... 1 Intussusception...... 3 Tuberculosis, Abdominal...... 1 Lymphatic Leukaerrmia ...... 1 Tuberculosis, Miliary ...... 1 Marasmus ...... 1 ___ Marasmus and Congenital 43 Defect ...... 1