Issue 05, August 2017 Inside this issue Preserving local 10 history on film The Row that 14 Barber built The stones of 24 Wakerley Bridge PLUS The social world of Nottingham’s green spaces • The Fearon fountain • Regional news & events and much more 1 WELCOME & CONTENTS WELCOME HIDDEN VOICES Welcome back to East Midlands History and Contents So write History and WELCOME & CONTENTS WELCOME Heritage, the magazine that uniquely caters for Entertaining the for us community: hospital Heritage at NTU local history societies, Let us have details of your news fundraising before Postgraduate qualifications with flexible study starting 04 and events. schools and colleges, the NHS September 2018 We’ll take your stories about your heritage practitioners MA History: This course is ideal if you wish to pursue a historical community’s history to a larger regional interest beyond your degree or as preparation for further PhD study. and history professionals Political biographies audience. We’d also welcome articles about Case studies have included Crusades and Crusaders; Early Modern our region’s broader past. across the region, putting of the early women Religions and Cultures; Slavery, Race and Lynching; Memory, Genocide, councillors on Contact us via our website at Holocaust; Social History and ‘The Spatial Turn'. them in contact with you 07 Nottingham City www.eastmidlandshistory.org.uk MA Museum and Heritage Development: This interdisciplinary or email [email protected] course combines academic interrogation of museums and heritage and you with them. Council 1920-1930 as ideas, organisations and experiences with creative, practice- based approaches to their ongoing development. It is delivered in We’d like to draw your attention particularly collaboration with Museum Development East Midlands, Nottingham to our first Annual Conference, entitled Luther Preserving local history City Museums and Galleries, Museum of the Mercian Regiment, and the East Midlands, 30th September 2017, at De on film the National Justice Museum and Barker Langham. Montford University. For further information please 10 contact Liz Tingle: [email protected] MA (by research) Holocaust and Genocide: Pursue advanced research in the field of Holocaust and Genocide. You will have the unique We’d also encourage you to submit work to us for Young criminals on opportunity to collaborate in research with the National Holocaust publication. You can pick any topic from any period, Centre and Museum, and be active within regional and national just so long as it has a strong East Midlands connection. the march through 12 Holocaust memory networks. Articles are normally between 1500-2000 words long. the East Midlands Keep a look out, too, for matching images that will help Book a place at an open event illustrate your work (the higher the number of pixels, the www.ntu.ac.uk/hum larger we can make the image). So if you are currently The Row that Barber built working on a community project, or a private piece of 14 research, and would like to take your findings to a large audience, why don’t you email us with the details at: ‘Danse Macabre’– [email protected] Witnessing the Black Death in Dr Nick Hayes 18 Northamptonshire Nottingham Trent University through manorial records Katie Bridger, Helen Drew, Hannah Nicholson Assistant editors East Midlands Airport: 21 From local airfield to regional hub 10 15 19 Find us on The stones of Facebook 24 Wakerley Bridge We now have a group on Facebook to help extend our network of academic institutions, The social world students (undergrad and postgrad), local history of Nottingham’s groups, and the wider community, who are 27 united by an interest in the history and heritage green spaces of the East Midlands area. To post and comment, just join our group which you'll find by logging The Fearon fountain on to and 30 www.facebook.com searching for East Midlands History and Heritage. News and notices – West Lindsey We're also on twitter @EastMidlandsHH 31 Churches Festival 25 29 Welcome 2 3 Visit www.eastmidlandshistory.org.uk or email [email protected] Visit www.eastmidlandshistory.org.uk or email [email protected] ENTERTAINING THE COMMUNITY: HOSPITAL FUNDRAISING BEFORE THE NHS BEFORE FUNDRAISING HOSPITAL THE COMMUNITY: ENTERTAINING HIDDEN VOICES Volunteers for the Newark Town & District Hospital Entertaining the and Dispensary in 1926, the year of the General Strike, held five dances, three whist drives, community: hospital three concerts, two benefit nights, a hospital fundraising before the NHS ball, an angling competition, an Alexandra Rose Day collection, a garden fete, a sale of allotment produce, and a Cricket League Hospital Cup. Before the NHS was founded in 1948, hospital and ENTERTAINING THE COMMUNITY: HOSPITAL FUNDRAISING BEFORE THE NHS BEFORE FUNDRAISING HOSPITAL THE COMMUNITY: ENTERTAINING BY EDDIE CHEETHAM healthcare funding in the United Kingdom operated very very popular, with the majority of individual patients paying into them, in a way far more universal than simply acts of giving through an annual differently. There were two different types of hospital these low-cost, affordable schemes to secure hospital cover for themselves subscription. They provided competitions and entertainment in many forms, provision. Voluntary hospitals, both general and specialist, and their dependents. The larger general hospitals – Nottingham, Derby, and helped to advertise the good cause of the hospital, as well as the various and Chesterfield – became very adept at securing these income streams. ways to donate and contribute towards it. focused on acute medical care, specialist services such as While these large sums of money were very important, also significant was the Volunteers for the Newark Town & District Hospital and Dispensary money raised through carnivals, entertainments, and other public fundraising eye treatments or ENT, and accident and emergency services. in 1926, the year of the General Strike, held five dances, three whist drives, events. For smaller hospitals particularly, which frequently lacked a regular three concerts, two benefit nights, a hospital ball, an angling competition, RAM-PAGE COURTESY OF REG COX Patients would go to see consultants, be operated on, or be income, public fundraising became a key part of their financial makeup. Some an Alexandra Rose Day collection, a garden fete, a sale of allotment produce, of the largest events, such as the city-wide Hospital Day in Derby (started in seen as outpatients. Patients paid what they could, or were and a Cricket League Hospital Cup. They also took collections at the local 1928), brought in thousands of pounds in cash and goods. There were parades, bowling club, Wesleyan Society, many football matches, and at a Christmas treated for free. Outside the voluntary sector, there sat a sports, and competitions. Every year, too, the organisers published a magazine carol concert. This raised £423 just in ‘entertainments’ alone, 7% out of the called the ‘Ram-Page’, containing comical stories, caricatures of local civic patchwork quilt of local authority and public services. £5,386 total ordinary income that year. Mansfield Hospital, in the late nineteen leaders, cartoons, as well as adverts from local companies. The most famous (or infamous) were the workhouse thirties, encouraged the continuation of public fundraising because it ensured There were instances in the early twentieth century when voluntary hospital that the hospital was able “to treat free of all charge the necessitous poor, infirmaries, or as they later became after 1929, Public ran into financial trouble. Particularly during and after the First World War, the unemployed, old age pensioners, etc., etc.” who were unable to pay towards increasing costs of healthcare and wartime disruption meant that hospitals their care either via the hospital almoner or via one of the subscription or Assistance Infirmaries that were run by local authorities. found themselves with year-on-year deficits. In 1917, the traders contributory schemes. Similarly Wirksworth Cottage Hospital volunteers Originally attached to the workhouse to provide healthcare of Chesterfield and District decided to alleviate the financial problems that created a series of events, including dramatic entertainments, carnivals, their local hospital faced by holding a Bazaar on the 19th September. and a ‘Pound Day’. for resident and out-relief paupers, in the twentieth century This was opened by the Marquiss of Hartington, the son of the Duke of In the early 20th Century, local cycling clubs started to conduct parades Devonshire, who had been the president of Chesterfield Hospital for some many grew into very large institutions in their own right. in aid of their local institutions. In Matlock, a yearly procession would snake decades. There was a huge market full of stalls, an industrial exhibition, and through the town, led by cyclists that had decorated their bicycles in elaborate Workhouse and public assistance infirmaries housed a number of entertainments. Appeals were made to individuals to donate ways. These would be followed by many townspeople competing in a fancy- sizable lump sums to the hospital. It was a resounding success. Over £4,000 particularly the chronic sick and geriatric patients. dress competition, for which prizes were awarded for best dressed, and best was realised from the bazaar alone, and over £8,000 was raised in total. decorated bicycle. Hospital parades were common, and fancy dress was a WIRKSWORTH WAKE The voluntary hospitals are closest to what we would Of this, £4,300 was handed over to the hospital to clear its debt, and £4,000 was staple. Characters from history and contemporary events were mimicked or donated for future building work. A similarly event was organised in Buxton associate today as a typical hospital, providing a wider mocked, and contestants were not shy of being political. Lord Nelson appeared just a few years later in aid of the Devonshire Hospital and Buxton Bath Charity. in Bolsover, while a group of women in Whittington Moor (near Chesterfield) range of care.