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Peace campaigner, community worker and writer, Muriel Lester was born in 1883 at Gainsborough Lodge, Leytonstone, Essex, the third daughter of a wealthy businessman, Henry Edward Lester, and his third wife, Rachel Mary Goodwin. In 1908 Muriel and her sister Doris moved to Bow (now Bromley by Bow) in London's East End and became active in providing social and educational activities in the community. The sisters were joined by their younger brother, Kingsley, who died in 1914. The following year, with financial help from their father, the sisters bought a disused chapel as a 'teetotal pub' to give local people,evening meeting place. It was named Kingsley Hall, in memory of their brother. Muriel and Doris then set up the first purpose-built 'Children's House' in London. Designed by Charles Cowles Voysey according to the ideas of Maria Montessori, it was opened in 1923. From 1922 to 1926, Muriel served as an Alderman on George Lansbury's radical Poplar Borough Council, chairing the Maternal and Child Welfare Committee. In 1928 Cowles Voysey designed a new, purpose-built Kingsley Hall for the sisters, combining the functions of a community centre and place of worship. Muriel herself took on the role of vicar. In 1929 the sisters set up a second Kingsley Hall was on the vast new Becontree Estate in Dagenham, Essex, where many Bow residents had been relocated as part of the slum clearance programme. Muriel took a pacifist stance in 1914 and was a founding member of the Christian pacifist organization, the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR). She travelled to India in 1926 to meet M K Gandhi: this was the start of a warm friendship. In 1931, attending the Round Table Conference on Indian independence in London, Gandhi stayed at Kingsley Hall in Bow. In 1934 Muriel Lester began her work as travelling secretary for the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. Over the next years she carried a message of Christian non violence into the very heart of conflict situations all over the world. She had a large following in the USA. The success of her anti-war speeches there led to her detention in Trinidad in 1941. She mixed easily with the humble but impressed many influential figures, among them Clement Attlee, George Lansbury, Lord Lytton, Lord Halifax, Gandhi, Nehru, Kenyatta, Mandela, H G Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt, Madame Chiang Kaishek, Sybil Thorndike, and Vera Brittain. Muriel Lester was an exponent of practical Christianity, but her writings also reveal deep spirituality. In addition to copious Travel Letters, She wrote numerous articles and had over twenty works published, including two autobiographical accounts, It Occurred to Me (1939) and It So Happened (1947). During More formal recognition of her work came in 1964 when Muriel was awarded the freedom of the borough of Poplar. She died on 11 February 1968 at her home, Kingsley Cottage, Loughton, Essex. A thanksgiving service was held at Kingsley Hall, Bow, on 4 April; her body was donated to science.
The London History Workshop Centre was established in 1982 as a spin-off from the national History Workshop events and History Workshop Journal. The Centre aimed to gather material on all aspects of London life, organise and conserve such material and encourage participation and involvement by Londoners in recording and using the city's history. The Centre also offered an educational service, ran events, such as the LCC/GLC Centenary, and produced a number of publications. A major part of its work was a sound and video archive which collected stored and made accessible audio and video recordings about and by Londoners. The Centre closed in 1992.
Born, 1756, Devon; married John Huxtable (1760-1838), South Molton, Devon, in November 1784; John Huxtable acquired Narracott, a farm in George Nympton parish, in 1806 and the family moved into the property in 1811; the couple had eight children, six sons and two daughters; Elizabeth Huxtable died in South Molton in July 1851, aged 94.
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Born in Winchester in 1815; when Butler was four years old, the family moved to London in search of employment and in later years, he learned the family trade of boot and shoemaking; ran a shop in Ben Jonson Road, Stepney (formerly Rhodeswell Road); married, lived in Baker Street, Stepney, and had nine children, of which two boys and three girls reached adulthood; around 1850, Butler found religion and became an active member of the Open Air Mission, working together with City missionaries to offer material and spiritual support to the disadvantaged in the East End; died in March 1884 while living in Stepney Green and was buried in Tower Hamlets Cemetery as a non conformist in unconsecrated ground and in a public, unmarked grave.
The National Standard Theatre, located in Shoreditch High Street, was originally built in 1837 with a horse shoe auditorium seating 3,400 but was destroyed by fire in 1866; rebuilt and reopened December 1867 with a seating capacity of 3000; rebuilt for a third time by Bertie Crewe with a capacity of 2,463; by November 1926 it was in use as a cinema called The New Olympia Picturedrome; building demolished in 1940.
Mavis Middleton (nee Bidgood) was born July 28, 1922, and from the age of one grew up at Wensley House, a home school on the edge of the forest at Epping. She attended the Loughton County High School and then Bedford College, London, where she gained a certificate in Social Studies. As part of her training she worked for a time at the Stepney Green Jewish Girls Club and Settlement House, a place she loved and remained in contact with for many years. Her first job was as a club leader for the National Council of Girls Clubs in Rugby, Warks. There she met her husband, 'Middy' Middleton, who was working for BTH (British Thompson Houston), and they were married on January 29, 1944. Four and a half years later, they moved to Cambridge where Middy had been offered the post of university lecturer in electrical engineering. Two of their children were born in Rugby and two in Cambridge. As a young wife and mother, Mavis was fortunate enough not to have to go out to work, but she never lost her strong commitment to social causes. During the early 1950s she joined in the efforts of the International Help for Children to find foster homes for refugee children from the Balkans. She and Middy were active in the local Liberal Party, and once hosted a fundraising garden party opened by Jo Grimmond. During the 1960s as their children grew older, her voluntary activities increased. For more than a decade she was an elected council member of the South Cambridgeshire Rural District Council. She was an active founder member of the Cambridge Law Surgery, the Cambridge Association for the Advancement of State Education and the Cambridge Association for the Prevention of Drug Addiction. From the late 1960s as their own children left home, she and Middy fostered a family of five children with whom they remained in touch for the rest of their lives. As a result of this experience, Mavis became involved with The Voice for the Child in Care, and later helped, both practically and financially, to establish a refuge for battered women in Cambridge. She was employed for a year as a welfare support worker for students at the Cambridge College of Arts and Technology. During the course of the 1970s, Mavis became increasingly active with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the Cambridge and the East Anglia groups and then on the national committee. In June 1982, she and Middy attended the United Nations Second Special Session on Nuclear Disarmament in New York, and in October 1983, on behalf of CND, she went to lobby US senators in Washington, DC. In 1987, after 40 years in Cambridge, Mavis and Middy moved to Whittlesey, Cambs. Mavis became a volunteer general adviser for the Peterborough CAB (Citizens Advice Bureau), and then for DIAL Peterborough (Disability Information and Advice Line). She continued to do this to the end of her life. Middy died in 1994, aged 88, and Mavis died on New Year's Day, 1999.
Eric Moonman was born in Liverpool in April 1929. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Billericay 1966-70 and Basildon 1974-1979. Moonman was educated at Liverpool and Manchester Universities and became a senior research fellow in the Department of Management Science at Manchester University. He was a councillor on Stepney Borough Council, serving as Council Leader until 1965, and on the London Borough of Tower Hamlets from 1964.
Moonman contested Chigwell in 1964 without success and was elected for Billericay in the 1966 general election, losing the seat four years later. He then was elected for Basildon at the February 1974 election, but again lost his seat at the 1979 general election. In the 1980s, he joined the short-lived Social Democratic Party (SDP). Since then, he has pursued an academic career, and is currently Professor of Management at City University, London and Senior Fellow, University of Liverpool.
The National Miners Support Network was established in 1992 at the initiative of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs and was supported by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and Women Against Pit Closures; aimed to encourage and coordinate maximum practical support and solidarity for miners in all areas of the country following the Government's announcement of pit closures in 1992; took steps to produce a regular support bulletin ('Coal Not Dole'), stage fundraising events, distribute posters and badges, organise meetings and speakers and hold a major national conference.
Gilda O'Neill was born in Bethnal Green in 1951, the granddaughter of a Thames tug skipper and a pie-and-mash shop owner. Her parents, Dolly and Tom Griffiths, originally from Bow, eventually joined the postwar slum clearance diaspora in Dagenham, Essex. Leaving school at 15, she took a succession of office and bar jobs in the City. In 1971 she began a whirlwind romance with John O'Neill and married him a week after their first meeting. After their son and daughter were born, Gilda went back to education and began writing after studying at the Open University and the Polytechnic of East London.
In 1989, Gilda's first book was commissioned, the oral history Pull No More Bines: Hop Picking: Memories of a Vanished Way of Life (1990) for the Women's Press (it was reissued as Lost Voices in 2006). She had been fascinated by her mother's accounts of hop-picking in Kent as a girl, and indeed had accompanied her there as a small child. Her first novel, The Cockney Girl (1992), drew on her family experience, but combined it with careful research, also a feature of the crime novels she wrote in later years, of which The Sins of Their Fathers (2003) was the first in a trilogy. Gilda was prolific. Over 20 years, she published 15 novels and five social histories.
She participated regularly in workshops, and co-founded the writers' network Material Girls. In 2008, she joined the National Reading Campaign and contributed not only her book East End Tales (2008), a collection of easy-to-read childhood memories, to the campaign but also lent real fire to what might otherwise have been earnest events. Gilda died from side-effects triggered by medication prescribed for a minor injury in 2010.
Her publications include: My East End: Memories of Life in Cockney London (1999), Our Street: East End Life in the Second World War (2003), The Good Old Days: Crime, Murder and Mayhem in Victorian London (2006). Her novels, include family sagas such as The Bells of Bow (1994) and Just Around the Corner (1995).
The Raphael Samuel History Centre is a research and educational centre devoted to encouraging the widest possible participation in historical research and debate. The RSHC has a large programme of research, teaching, and public events. The Raphael Samuel History Centre is a four-way partnership between the University of East London (UEL), Birkbeck, University of London, Queen Mary, University of London and the Bishopsgate Institute.
Sandys Row Synagogue is the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue in London, and the last remaining synagogue in Spitalfields. The main synagogue building is almost 250 years old and Grade II Iisted. In 1763 a French Huguenot community purchased an old chapel and it's freehold on this site for £400 on a corner of Henry VIII's artillery ground. L'Eglise d'Artillerie was dedicated in 1766 and remained open until 1786, when it merged with the London Walloon Church. For the next fifty years, the church was let to several Baptist congregations, becoming known as Salem Chapel and then Parliament Court Chapel.
In 1854, 50 poor Dutch Ashkenazi Jewish families founded a chevrah, a type of Friendly Society with a small synagogue attached known as the 'Society for loving-kindness and truth'. The first of its kind. By 1867, it had grown to five hundred members when it acquired the leasehold of the French chapel, having found a champion in the architect, Nathan Joseph. The site was particularly suitable because it had a balcony and was on an East-West axis, albeit facing westwards. Joseph blocked up the original entrances which are still visible, and formed a new one in Sandys Row, together with a new three-storey building for offices and accommodation. The community's independent streak, which perhaps goes a long way to explaining its longevity, was first evidenced in 1870, when the leading Sephardi rabbi, Haham Benjamin Artom of nearby Bevis Marks Synagogue, formally consecrated this Ashkenazi place of worship. The Chief Rabbi at the time, Nathan Marcus Adler, had publicly opposed the establishment of any new synagogue by the poor East End Ashkenazi migrant community and refused to be associated with it. In November 1887, Sandys Row Synagogue was the largest of the East End congregations that founded the Federation of Synagogues. It left the Federation in 1899, and was refurbished for the 50th anniversary of the community after acquiring its freehold becoming an Associate of the United Synagogue in 1922. In 1949 it returned to independent status. For many years the Synagogue acted as the secretariat of the Stepney and Whitechapel Street Traders' Association, bringing together all the market traders from both Petticoat Lane and Whitechapel Markets.
Unite Against Fascism (UAF): Unite Against Fascism is an anti-fascist pressure group in the United Kingdom. UAF was established in 2003 following the electoral successes of the British National Party, beginning as a coalition that included the Anti-Nazi League, the National Assembly Against Racism, the Trades Union Congress, Unite – the Union, and UNISON.
UAF aims to raise awareness nationally of the potential affects to the UK and British society if fascist and far right groups (including the British National Party and the English Defence League), gain seats in local, national and European elections.
Love Music Hate Racism: Love Music Hate Racism is a music-orientated campaign established in 2002 by the Anti Nazi League and Unite Against Fascism in response to the perceived increase in support for the far right and the British National Party.
The campaign involves concerts aimed at communicating an anti-racist message. It follows in the tradition of the 1970s Rock Against Racism campaign, which also involved the Anti-Nazi League.
Anti Nazi League:The Anti-Nazi League (ANL) was established in 1977 on the initiative of the Socialist Workers Party (with sponsorship from some trade unions) to oppose the rise of far-right groups in the UK. It was brought to a close in 1981, but re-launched in 1992. In 2003 it merged with Unite Against Fascism.
Rock Against Racism: Rock Against Racism (RAR) was a campaign set up in 1976 by Red Saunders, Roger Huddle and others, including the Anti Nazi League, as a response to an increase in racial conflict and the growth of white nationalist groups such as the National Front. The campaign involved musicians from a range of genres playing at concerts with an anti-racist theme with the aim of discourage young people from embracing racism.
Reginald George (Reg) Ward was born in Thanet in 1924 and was by trade a plumber. He had a long and distinuished career in local government, serving on the former Margate Borough Council for nearly 25 years and leading the Labour Group for much of that period. He was also member of Thanet District Council and was a Kent county councillor in the 1970s. In 1972, in recognition of his services, he was made a Freeman of the Borough of Margate. He also served as a governor of many Thanet schools and as Chairman of the Quarterdeck Youth Club.
He stood unsucessfully as Parliamentary candidate for Canterbury in 1955 and Ashford in 1959. He has represented the Labour Party at regional and national conferences and lectured for the Party at a number of schools. He was Chairman of the Kent Labour Party and the Thanet West CLP, and a member of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society (later SE Retail CWS).
The archive comprises material pertaining to Frederick Porter Wensley (1865-1949) [FPW] and his family. FPW rose from humble origins in Somerset (his father was a cobbler) to become arguably the greatest British detective of his age. His early career was pursued substantially in the East End of London and the family lived for much of this period at 98 Dempsey Street (just off the Commercial Road) in Stepney - moving in 1913 to a new suburban development in Palmers Green.
The archive tells the story of FPW's marriage to "Lollie" [Laura] Martin (1869-1943) and their three children Frederick Martin Wensley (1894-1916), "Edie" [Edith] Mercy Wensley - later Cory (1897-1974) and Harold William Wensley (1899-1918). That the collection has survived is largely due to Edie who after the death of her brothers in the 'Great War' took upon herself the task of keeping the memories of the family alive. Edie's own story is then taken forward. The correspondence gives a remarkable insight into her social life, development, marriage to another detective 'Bert' [Herbert] Cory (1893-1946) and the upbringing of FPW's only grandchild Harold Frederick Wensley Cory (1927-1997).
The Wensley Family archive thus overlaps with the earlier part of the Cory (see above) Family Archive. The former relates to London whilst the latter relates to the family's period of residence in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
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Collection donated to the College by Thomas Povey, colonial entrepreneur and administrator, 1669. Louise Campbell, in A Catalogue of Manuscripts in the College of Arms: Collections, vol 1 (1988), shows that at least six manuscripts, and probably another three, were written by William Bowyer, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London from 1563, and that more manuscripts were added to the collection by his son, Robert Bowyer, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London from 1604.
The East London Hospital For Children And Dispensary For Women was founded in a converted warehouse at Ratcliff Cross in 1868, and originally known as the Shadwell Hospital for Women and Children. It was established by Dr Nathaniel and Mrs Sarah Heckford as a result of their experiences in Wapping during the 1866 Cholera outbreak. In 1875 the Hospital moved to a new building in Shadwell, helped by Charles Dickens raising funds by publishing two articles about the Hospital. In 1930 it had 136 beds. Its name was changed in 1932 to the Princess Elizabeth of York Hospital for Children.
In 1942 an Act of Parliament was passed to amalgamate the Hospital with The Queen's Hospital for Children in Hackney to form The Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. The Hospital was administered as one, but functioned on two sites: Queen Elizabeth, Hackney Road and Queen Elizabeth, Shadwell. A third site at Banstead, Surrey, the Banstead Wood Country Hospital, was opened in 1948. By the early 1960s the number of beds at Shadwell had fallen to less than 50. The Hospital was closed on 30th April 1963 and the building subsequently demolished.
The Queen's Hospital for Children was founded in 1867, in Virginia Road, Bethnal Green as the North Eastern Hospital for Children. The Hospital moved to Hackney Road, Bethnal Green, shortly after its foundation, and was renamed Queen's Hospital for Children in 1907. The Hospital was amalgamated with the Princess Elizabeth of York Hospital, Shadwell, in 1942, and renamed the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children. The Queen Elizabeth Group Hospital Management Committee was formed in 1948 to administer The Queen Elizabeth Hospital on its three sites on Hackney Road, Shadwell and Banstead.
On the closure of the Shadwell site in 1963 the Hospital amalgamated with the Hackney Group to form the Hackney and Queen Elizabeth Group. This arrangement lasted until 1968, when the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was detached from the Hackney Group and placed under the Board of Governors of the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. The Hospital's Convalescent Home was managed by a Committee which selected a site in Bognor in 1868. The foundation stone was laid in October 1897, and the Home closed in 1912.
The Hospital was a weekly journal established in 1886 by Sir Henry Burdett, who also edited the title, at first alone and later jointly. From 1888 Burdett also published an annual directory entitled Burdett's hospitals and charities: being the year book of philanthropy and The Hospital annual. From October 1921 The Hospital was published on a monthly basis as The Hospital and Health Review. From 1935, The Hospital was merged with The Hospital Gazette, which itself had been founded in 1905 and was the official organ of The British Hospitals Association and The Incorporated Association of Hospital Officers. Latterly it was published as The Hospital and Health Services Review (from 1972) by the Institute of Health Service Management, London, which also publishes The IHSM Health Services year book. From 1988 the journal was known as Health Services Management.
The League of Nurses was founded in 1931 by Beatrice Monk, Matron of the London Hospital from 1919 to 1931. The league was established to form a bond between present and former members of the nursing staff at the London Hospital. Membership was initially open to holders of the hospital's training certificate, plus staff nurses elected by the league's executive. This was later widened to include qualified nurses, midwives or health visitors who had worked in Tower Hamlets District for one year, and former members of the Mile End League of Nurses, with which it amalgamated in 1970. A benevolent fund was established in 1945, and the league continues to help serve the professional, personal and social needs of members.
The London Hospital Medical College was established by the efforts of William Blizard and Dr James Maddocks, who in 1783 proposed to the Hospital House Committee that a proper medical school should be established in connection with the London Hospital. At this time, the training of a physician or surgeon consisted of two elements; the practical, which meant "walking the wards" of a hospital, as the pupil of a member of the staff, and the theoretical, which consisted of lectures on a number of subjects. Lectures were normally given by individual physicians or surgeons, either in their own premises, or in private medical schools. The Medical College was to enable students to receive practical and theoretical training at the same place, organised along the lines of a University. The Committee allowed Blizard and Maddocks a piece of land at the east end of the hospital on which to build a lecture theatre and museum. The Hospital made no financial contribution, as the Committee did not feel that medical education should be funded by hospital finances, nor would it allow the lecturers' private pupils into the wards. The new building was opened in October 1785.
From its opening in 1785 until 1831, the College appears to have been run by the physicians and surgeons in an informal manner, probably largely under the influence of Blizard. In 1831 the medical practitioners teaching in the College formed themselves into an association of "Lecturers and Teachers of Medicine, Surgery and Anatomy and other Sciences connected therewith at the Theatre attached to the London Hospital", which became the Medical Council of the London Hospital School in 1847. The old premises were now proving inadequate and in 1854 the Hospital Governors agreed to erect a new college building. The building housed two large lecture theatres, two museums, a library, dissecting room and two smaller lecture rooms. In the resultant administrative changes, the Medical and Surgical Officers of the Hospital took over the management of the College from the Medical Council, as the London Hospital College Council. In practice, the Medical Council and the College Council consisted of the same people. The management of the College was in the hands of the College Council (called, by 1868, the Medical Council of the London Hospital School) from 1855 to 1876. In 1876, after several years of negotiation, the House Committee of the Hospital took a hand in the administration and regular financial support of the College. Management was given over to a College Board consisting of nine members of the House Committee and six of the Medical Council. In 1879, at the end of a three year trial period and further negotiation, a new College Board was formed, consisting of six members from the House Committee and six from the Medical Council. In 1900 the College became a School of the University of London, although this change made no real difference to its administrative arrangements.
The Dental School of the London Hospital Medical College opened in 1911 to provide specialised treatment to patients and training and research opportunities. Surgeon Dentists had been appointed by the Hospital from 1857, and a Dental Department established. William Wright, Dean of the Medical College, was instrumental in the founding of the Dental School supported by the Dental Surgeon to the Hospital, Francis Farmer. It was managed by the Dental Council, which developed from the Dental School Committee formed in 1911. The Dental Council became known as the London Hospital Dental Board from 1913 to 1921, and from 1922 onwards the Dental Council. The Dental Education Committee was established by resolution of the College Board in March 1945. Originally accommodated in the Hospital's Out-Patients Department, the Dental School moved to new premises in Stepney Way in 1965.
With the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948, the College Board was abolished. The overall management of the Medical College passed to a Council of Governors and its standing Committee which was, in effect, the continuation of the Finance Committee of the College Board. Education matters were the concern of the Academic Board. In 1989 the pre-clinical teaching of the London Hospital Medical College merged with that of St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School as the Central and East London Confederation (CELC). It was re-sited at the Basic Medical Sciences Building at Queen Mary & Westfield College, Mile End. The Hospital was granted a royal title in 1990 and the College became known as the Royal London Hospital Medical College. Following the recommendations of the Tomlinson Report (1992) and the governmental response to it (Making London Better, 1993), the medical colleges of the Royal London and St Bartholomew's hospitals were united with Queen Mary & Westfield College, in December 1995. The resulting institution became known as St Bartholomew's and the Royal London School of Medicine & Dentistry.
Newham Health District existed from 1974 to 1981, as one of three districts within the City and East London Area Health Authority (Teaching). During this period the development of Newham General Hospital was planned and a number of joint consultative appointments made, mostly with the London Hospital Medical College.
Newham District Health Authority was established in 1981. Until the National Health Service reorganisation in 1991 the Authority was responsible for running hospital and other health services in Newham. In 1991 the District became the purchasing authority for health services for the population for Newham, with provider services contracted principally with Newham Healthcare, based at Newham General Hospital. In 1993 Newham District Health Authority merged with City and Hackney District Health Authority and Tower Hamlets District Health Authority to form the East London and City Health Authority.
This hospital originated from the West Ham Board of Guardians Smallpox Hospital, which was established in Western Road , Plaistow in 1871, the Poplar Board of Works Infectious Diseases Hospital, which opened in Samson Street in 1878 and the Smallpox Hospital established in Pragel Street by West Ham Local Board in 1884. The Pragel Street premises closed in 1894 when the Samson Street premises were purchased by West Ham Borough Council and in the following year the Council likewise purchased the Smallpox Hospital at Western Road. Through the closure of part of Western Road, a large island site was made available for the development of a new Infectious Diseases Hospital, which opened in 1901 with accommodation for 210 patients as Plaistow Fever Hospital.
The new Hospital was considered to be one of the most modern of its kind and originated the barrier method of nursing infectious cases. Training of probationer nurses had commenced in 1898. In 1906 the Hospital was recognised by several universities and the royal college for the training of medical students in infectious diseases and over the next 37 years over 3000 students received fever training at Plaistow. The Hospital was damaged by bombing during World War II and in 1947 the older Samson Street buildings were made available for Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, as a medical in-patient department. The name of the Hospital was changed to Plaistow Hospital in 1948 in recognition of the fact that it was available for acute medical cases as well as infectious cases. In 1982 chest medicine beds were transferred to St. Andrew's Hospital by Newham Health Authority and from 1983 the hospital began to specialise in elderly long stay patients with such patients from Newham transferring from Langthorne Hospital, Leyton to Plaistow. A dementia assessment unit was opened in 1987and in 1990 Plaistow day Hospital was upgraded and extended to provide 40 places for elderly people. Management of the hospital transferred from East London & The City Health Authority to Newham Community Health Services NHS Trust in 1995. It closed in 2006 when the patients from the Frail Elders Services were transferred to the newly opened, purpose-built East Ham Care Centre, behind the East Ham Memorial Hospital in Shrewsbury Road. The patients had occupied just half the site of the Plaistow Hospital and it was felt it was no longer economically viable to keep the remaining staff on site.
The original buildings were erected in 1848 - 1849 as a workhouse for the Board of Guardians of the City of London Union. In 1874 it was converted into an infirmary for the same Union. With the reconstruction of Homerton Workhouse in 1909, Bow was superfluous to the Union's needs and was closed, but in 1912 it was re-opened as Bow Institution to treat the chronic sick. London County Council took over the hospital in 1930 when the Board of Guardians was abolished; the number of beds was increased to 786. In 1933 a mental observation unit was opened. St. Clement's (so named from 1936) was badly damaged by bombs in August 1944.
On the introduction of the National Health Service, the Hospital was taken over by the Bow (No. 8) Hospital Management Committee (itself replaced in 1963 by the Thames Group Hospital Management Committee). In 1959, it became exclusively psychiatric. Control of the Hospital passed to the Governors of the London Hospital in 1968, and its designation was altered to The London Hospital (St. Clement's). In 1974 it became part of the Tower Hamlets Health District. The hospital formed part of The Royal London Hospital and Associated Community Services NHS Trust in 1991 and was known as The Royal London Hospital (St Clement's) from 1990. Upon closure of the hospital in 2005 services were transferred to a new Adult Mental Health Facility at Mile End Hospital.
This Committee was established by the North East Metropolitan Hospitals Board on the introduction of the National Health Service in July 1948. The Group consisted of the East End Maternity Hospital, the London Jewish Hospital, Mile End Hospital and St. George's-in-the-East Hospital, together with several clinics. St. George's-in-the-East was closed in September 1956. The Committee was dissolved in 1966 on the formation of the East London Group.
[In 1836 the parish of St George-in-the-East became a Poor Law parish, administered by 18 elected Guardians, who took over the workhouse between Prusom Street and Princes Street (later renamed Raine Street) which had been built about ten years earlier. In 1844 the workhouse was extended and, in 1871, an infirmary was added. In 1893 a Nurse Training School was established at the Infirmary. During WW1 patients were transferred to the St-George-in-the-East Infirmary from the Bethnal Green Hospital, when the military authorities took over the latter for the use of wounded servicemen. In 1925 the parish of St George-in-the-East joined the Stepney Poor Law Union. In 1930 the LCC took over control of the workhouse building and converted it into the St-George-in-the-East Hospital, with 406 beds. In 1948 the Hospital joined the NHS under the Stepney Group Hospital Management Committee, part of the North East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, but no records of the hospital are known to exist].
Community Health Councils were established in 1974 to represent the interests of the general public in their local health services. They have three areas of activity: monitoring of services by visits, consultation on Health Authority planning proposals and pursuing complaints by individuals.
The Authority was established in 1981 following the abolition of the City and East London Area Health Authority (Teaching) for records 1974 - 1981 q.v. On the reorganisation of the National Health Service in April 1991 the District became the purchasing authority for health services for the population of Tower Hamlets with provider services contracted principally with The Royal London Hospital and its Associated Community Services N.H.S. Trust (for records 1991 - 1994 q.v. RLHLT) In March 1993 Tower Hamlets District Health Authority merged with the City and Hackney District Health Authority and the Newham District Health Authority to form the East London and the City Health Authority.
As a result of the "Cogwheel" reports of the late 1960s the pattern of the advisory structure of the Medical Council's Committee of Medicine and Surgery was replaced by Divisions, that of Medicine first meeting in October 1968 and that of Surgery in the following Year. Between 1969 and 1982 further divisions were created: Anaesthesia, Dentistry, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Pathology and Radiography (later Medical Imaging), Scientific and Technical Services and Paramedical Services.
A further development of this process was the abolition of the Standing Committee of the Medical Council (q.v. LM) and its replacement in 1971 by the Final Medical Committee. This body consists essentially of the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Medical Council and representatives of the various divisions; acting as the official medium for the transmission of information and advice between the District Management Team (later Board) and the consultant medical and dental staff. As was the case with the Medical Council, the advisory structure was expanded in 1974 to include all of the District Hospitals. The Final Medical Committee was replaced by the Standing Committee of the Medical Council in February 1989: this was wound up in March 1995. The Divisions were replaced (excepting Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Paramedical Services) by four Strategic Planning Groups: 1. Local Acute Services, 2. Regional Services, 3. Sub-Regional Specialities and 4. Support and Diagnostic Departments.
The City and Hackney Health District was created in 1974 and formed one of three Health Districts in the City and East London Area Health Authority (Teaching), its boundaries coinciding with those of the Local Authority. The two other districts were Tower Hamlets and Newham. The District became the City and Hackney Health District Authority in 1982. It was abolished in 1993 and superceded by the East London and The City Health Authority.
Hospitals in the area were divided into units, with St Bartholomew's Hospital Unit comprising St Bartholomew's, St Leonard's and St Mark's hospitals; City of London Unit comprising St Bartholomew's and St Mark's; and the Hackney Unit comprising the Hackney, Eastern, Mothers', German, Homerton and St Matthew's hospitals. The Joint Consultative Committee was established to provide for joint care planning between local authorities and health authorities, and drew its membership from the London Borough of Hackney, the City of London Corporation, the Inner London Education Authority, the City and East London Family Practitioner Committee and voluntary organisations, as well as City and Hackney Health Authority. The City and East London Area Health Authority (Teaching) was responsible for the healthcare facilities in the City of London and the London Boroughs of Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Newham. It was divided into three Health Districts: City and Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets.
The Mothers' Hospital traces its origins to the work for unmarried mothers begun in the earliest days of the Salvation Army. 'Refuge Homes' for poor and destitute women were provided in private houses in various parts of London. As part of this scheme the Salvation Army established a home at Ivy House, Mare Street, Hackney in 1884. Many of the women seeking shelter there were pregnant, and in 1888 the Salvation Army decided to dedicate Ivy House to the confinement of unmarried mothers. Although maternity hospitals had existed in this country since the eighteenth century, these were almost entirely reserved for married mothers only. This was the first time that maternity hospital facilities had been combined with a 'Home of Refuge'.
The Hospital trained its first student midwife in 1889 and more than 250 pupil midwives graduated from the school during its eighteen year existence at Ivy House. During this period, the Hospital continued to expand and more buildings were bought. One of the later developments was a mother-and-baby home called Cotland, based at 11 Springfield Road, Upper Clapton. It existed between 1912 and 1920, and many of the women mentioned in the records of the Mothers' Hospital gave Cotland as an address. Finally, the Salvation Army purchased land in Lower Clapton Road, London E5 in order to build a hospital dedicated to unmarried mothers. In 1912, the foundation stone for the new Mothers' Hospital was laid by Princess Louise, daughter to Queen Victoria, and the Hospital was officially opened in 1913. Designed for 600 births per year, it soon outgrew its facilities and various extensions were made over the years. The new Hospital continued to uphold the teaching tradition of Ivy House and midwives were trained to the standards of the London Obstetrical Society and of the Central Midwives Board (CMB). Pupils attended classes for Parts I and II of the examinations of the CMB and gained experience both on the wards and in District work.
The First World War meant that the Hospital opened its doors to both married and unmarried women. Soldiers could not always send sufficient money to their families and the loss of many lives often caused acute poverty. Therefore, it was decided that the Hospital would be allowed to admit married women whose husbands were in the Army or Navy, or had been killed. Since that time the Hospital accepted both married and unmarried mothers. Between the two world wars, many improvements and additions were made. In 1921, the new nurses' home and theatre were opened by Queen Mary. By the 1930s, the number of births had risen to 2,000 per annum. The Hospital suffered damage during the Second World War, but fortunately there was no great loss of life. Arrangements were made for evacuation to Willersley Castle in Matlock, Derbyshire and to Bragborough Hall, Northamptonshire. However, the Hospital remained in service throughout the war for those who did not leave London. In all, 6,587 babies were born there between September 1939 and August 1945.
Research and innovation were always encouraged at the Mothers' Hospital. One interesting experiment which foreshadowed modern techniques of nursing was dictated by wartime conditions. In defiance of current practice, patients were made ambulant on the second day after delivery. The purpose of this carefully controlled experiment was to facilitate the orderly transfer of patients to the air-raid shelter and make more shelter space available. Margaret Basden, consultant obstetrician in residence during the war, recorded 'from personal experience how smoothly the scheme works, how well the patients stand it, and how striking has been the absence of any confusion or panic'.
With the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, the Hospital was given over to the Minister for Health and was later administered as part of the Hackney Group of Hospitals. However, Health Service Authorities agreed that a proportion of the staff should be members of the Salvation Army and thus the Hospital was able to maintain its individuality. In 1952, Lorne House was acquired opposite the Hospital and used as a training centre and home for 24 nurses. There was also a visiting service provided for mothers giving birth in their own homes. Between 1948 and 1974, the Mothers' Hospital belonged to the Hackney Group Hospital Management Committee and on 1 April 1974, the Group became part of the City and Hackney Health District. The Mothers' Hospital was closed in 1986, and all obstetric services were transferred to the Homerton Hospital.
Stanley George Browne was born on 8 December 1907, in New Cross London; educated at Waller Road Elementary School, New Cross, 1910-1919, and Brockley Central School, 1919-1923. Browne left school early due to the illness of his father, Arthur Browne (1874-1967) and was employed as junior clerk in the New Cross' clerk's department at Deptford town hall from 1923, whilst studying at night school. Browne passed matriculation in the first division, June 1926; was awarded one of the first London County Council (LCC) non-vocational scholarships in 1927 and entered King's College London in 1928, receiving a further scholarship allowing him to follow a medical course. Browne received an MB, BS, at London University in 1933.
Browne became a member of the Royal College of Physicians, 1934 and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, 1935; attended the Institut de Médecine Tropicale Prince Léopold, Antwerp, gaining a diploma in tropical medicine; worked at Baptist Missionary Society Hospital at Yakusu in the Belgian Congo,1936. In 1940, a leprosarium was opened at Yakusu and the American Mission to Lepers sent out a new drug, diasone, which Browne used successfully. He also worked on the increasing rate of onchocerciasis and the control of its vector, the blackfly Simulium damnosum, 1954. This leprosarium was known internationally and Browne was urged by leprologist Robert Cochrane to continue to focus upon leprosy.
Browne resigned from the Baptist Missionary Society, 1958 and returned to England for a year; was appointed senior leprologist at the Leprosy Research Unit, Uzuakoli in eastern Nigeria, 1959 and continued his work with trials of new drugs, in particular B663 or clofazimine. Browne was invited to be chairman of the working group on the treatment of leprosy at the International Congress on Leprosy at Rio de Janeiro, 1963 and advised on the establishment of the All Africa Leprosy Training and Rehabilitation Centre, in Adis Ababa. During this time Browne published extensively in both English and French on leprosy, onchocerciasis and other tropical diseases, as well as on medical ethics and succeeded Robert Cochrane as Director of the Leprosy Study Centre, London, 1966-1980.
Browne campaigned against the stigma attached to the disease leprosy and his work in this field was recognised when he was appointed an OBE in 1965 and the CMG in 1976. He was president of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from 1977 to 1979, and president of the Baptist Union from 1980 to 1981. Brown died, 29 January 1986.
Publications include Health of the whole person: a challenge to Christians (Medical Missionary Association by Christian Medical Fellowship, London, 1985); Leprosy: new hope and continuing challenge (The Leprosy Mission, London, 1966) and Leprosy in the Bible (Christian Medical Fellowship, London, [1970]).
Cinchona-Institute was a non-profit research institute connected to the quinine industry of Holland.
Dr Christopher Charles Gawler Draper was born in Malaysia in 1921; educated at Sherbourne and read Medicine at New College Oxford, graduating 1945. During his time in Oxford he was involved with the trials of penicillin at the Radcliffe Infirmary as part of the war effort and then spent a year as a resident junior doctor before being posted to Japan with the ANZACs for 18 months as a medical officer.
Undertook a 6 month posting in the Middle East with the International Red Cross, 1949; worked at a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan and was the first medical officer in the camp. Following his return to the UK, he took the Diploma in Public Health and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and became a member of staff at the School and worked at LSHTM as a junior lecturer under Professor George MacDonald for 3 years. During this period he travelled to West Africa for research trips; was recruited by the East African Medical Research Service to take charge of the Pare-Taveta scheme to control malaria and worked on methods of measuring the impact of the disease on the broader health status of the people living in the region. In particular, he carried out a famous study concerning the growth of children, 1954-1960, funded by the British government. The study was written up for Draper's doctoral thesis which he completed in 1963.
Draper returned to LSHTM in 1959 and spent a year learning the techniques needed to study viruses and was appointed deputy director of the West African Council Unit in Lagos, 1960, he where he and his wife Katharine stayed for 3 years and whilst in West Africa, isolated a new virus in the Cameroons. Draper worked for the Wellcome Foundation as a medical virologist in Kent, 1964-1968; returned to LSHTM as a senior lecturer in the Department of Tropical Hygiene, 1969 and throughout the 1970s and 1980s carried out numerous research projects abroad which covered a huge range of topics. In 1970 he returned to East Africa to study the Pare-Taveta. He made visits to Brazil, Salvador, the United States, Mauritius, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Egypt, the Caribbean, Panama, India, the Philippines, Burma, Thailand, Greece, Zambia, Cameroon, Nepal and China. His work mainly concerned malaria as well as rabies, bilharzias (schistosomiasis), Burkitt's lymphoma and leprosy.
Draper was a member of the WHO advisory committee on malaria and the tropical medicine research board and travelled to make inspection visits to various countries and was a pioneer of the ELISA tests and research in sero-epidemiology. After retirement he peer reviewed books and wrote several journal articles and still travelled on behalf of the WHO.
Robert Henry Elliot was born in 1864; educated at Bedford School, St Bartholomew's Hospital and later gained qualifications as Bachelor of Surgery, London; Doctor of Surgery, Edinburgh; Doctor of Medicine and Diploma of Public Health. Elliot was awarded Preliminary Scientific Exhibition Bentley Surgical Prize; Montefoire Medal and Scholarship in Military Surgery and Maclean Prize in Clinical Medicine, Netley 1892.
Elliot worked as Superintendent of Government Hospital Ophthalmic Hospital, Madras and Professor of Ophthalmology, Madras Medical College, 1904-1914; Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons, England; Chairman of Naval and Military Committee of British Medical Association, 1917-1922; Honourable Consulting Ophthalmic Surgeon, Hospital for Tropical Diseases, London; Vice President Institute of Hygiene; Chairman of Council British Health Resorts Association and Lecturer in Ophthalmology, London School of Tropical Medicine. Elliot was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London. Elliot died 9 November 1936.
Publications include: Sclero-corneal Trephining in the Operative Treatment of Glaucoma (George Pulman and Sons, London, 1913); The Indian Operation of Couching for Cataract (London, 1917) and Tropical Ophthalmology (H Frowde, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1920).
Sir William Wilson Jameson was born in 1885; educated at Aberdeen University and University College London, graduating in arts at Aberdeen in 1905 and qualified MB Ch.B at Marischal College in 1909. After resident posts in London hospitals he obtained the DPH in 1914. Henry Kenwood, on the outlook for talent for his department as Professor of Hygiene at University College London appointed him assistant lecturer in the same year; the two men then shared academic and wartime duties throughout World War One.
Jameson served in France, Italy, and at Aldershot as Specialist Sanitary Officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps, deputising in between teaching duties and the running of the department for Kenwood during the latter's absences serving with the Army Medical Advisory Board. Demobilised in 1919, Jameson then spent almost 10 years as MOH in Finchley and St Marylebone, and writing Synopsis of Hygiene (1st ed. 1920), with G S Parkinson. Appointed to the new Chair of Public Health at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, January 1929, he managed his new responsibilities as Professor, Head of Division, and Dean of the School with the consummate skill and tact needed within the new School.
Jameson was appointed Dean after the death of Sir Andrew Balfour in 1931, a position he held for nine years until he was appointed Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health in 1940, a position he held for ten years. His further very distinguished career included decisive influence on the creation of the National Health Service through his links with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education. For a time he acted part-time as Medical Advisor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. He travelled widely in the tropics and visited Uganda and West Africa where his advice on many matters was been sought, so he was also of great service to tropical medicine. He was the Harveian Orator of the Royal College of Physicians in 1942 and he received the Bisset Hawkins Medal in 1950. He served on the General Medical Council from 1942-1947. Jameson was knighted, 1939; Knight Commander of the Bath, 1943 and Knight Grand Cross Order of the British Empire, 1949. Jameson died in 1962.
Publications include A synopsis of hygiene by W. W. Jameson and G. S. Parkinson (Churchill, London, 1936).
Born in Liverpool, Leeson joined Professor Robert Newstead in the Entomological Department of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1909; joined the RAMC and worked with Newstead, Major EE Austen and Mr R Jackson on houseflies in France, from 1915; returning from the war he passed his sanitation examinations and became an Associate of the Royal Sanitary Institute; began his association with the London School of Tropical Medicine, 1925, being chosen as collector-demonstrator to Colonel A Alcock in the Entomological Department; From 1926 to 1928 he spent three years in Southern Rhodesia on an Anopheles survey - a work which was published as Memoir No.4 of the Research Series of the School; From 1933 to 1936 he returned to Southern Rhodesia on a study of Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles funestus; In 1936 he went on an expedition to East Africa, including Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika to study Anopheles funestus. Greece and Albania from 1938 with a Rockefeller Grant; during the Second World War he played an important part in malaria prevention in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Cyprus by carrying out anopheline surveys as the entomologist of No.2 Malaria Field Laboratory of which Professor G Macdonald was for some time commanding officer; in charge of the malaria wing of the Middle East School of Hygiene, 1943-1945; when the War ended he returned to the School to work as lecturer in the Department of Entomology and a Recognised Teacher of the University of London; elected a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society in 1930 and of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 1943. Leeson wrote many scientific papers, his major works include No.4 of the School's Memoir series on anopheline mosquitoes of Southern Rhodesia and No.7 on anopheles in the Near East. He also assisted Professor Buxton in his work on tsetse flies, No.10 of the Memoir series.
Patrick Manson was born in 1844 and studied medicine at Aberdeen University, passing M.B. and C.M. in 1865. In 1866 he became medical officer of Formosa for the Chinese imperial maritime customs, moving to Amoy in 1871. Here, while working on elephantoid diseases, he discovered in the tissues of blood-sucking mosquitoes the developmental phase of filaria worms. From 1883 to 1889 he was based in Hong Kong, where he set up a school of medicine that developed into the university and medical school of Hong Kong. Returning to London, he became physician to the Seaman's Hospital in 1892. He played a central role in the development of tropical medicine as a distinct discipline, publishing on tropical diseases, being instrumental in the setting up of the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1899, and becoming physician and advisor to the Colonial Office in 1897. He propounded the theory that malaria was propagated by mosquitoes, a theory to be proved by Sir Ronald Ross (1857-1932). He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1900 and awarded CMG, 1900, KCMG in 1903, and GCMG, 1912; he died in 1922.
Sir Philip Henry Manson-Bahr was born in Liverpool in 1881; educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he specialised in Zoology. Having qualified at the London Hospital in 1907, he married Sir Patrick Manson's daughter, changed his name to Manson-Bahr and devoted the rest of his career to tropical medicine. Having studied filariasis in Fiji at the instigation of Manson, he worked on malaria and sprue in Ceylon before 1914.
During World War One he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Middle East and Egypt, where he worked on schistosomiasis with Hamilton Fairley. He was instrumental in establishing Malaria Diagnosis Stations in forward areas during the war. After demobilisation he was appointed lecturer at the London School of Tropical Medicine and later Senior Physician at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and Director of Clinical Studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1937-1947). Until his death in 1966, he worked as editor of successive editions of Manson's Tropical Diseases, work later followed up by his eldest son, Clinton Manson-Bahr.
Born Haworth, Yorkshire, 10 Feb 1857; educated in Haworth and Keighley; entered St Thomas' Hospital, London, 1875; graduated MB, London, 1880; MD, London, 1881; resident at St Thomas and General Practitioner, Clapham, London; appointed part-time Medical Officer of Health (MOH) for the parish of Clapham, 1884; appointed MOH for Brighton, 1888; conducted research in epidemiology, particularly relating to tuberculosis, scarlet fever, and diphtheria; gave Milroy lectures at the Royal College of Physicians on The Natural History and Affinities of Rheumatic Fever', 1895; FRCP London, 1898; President, Society of Medical Officers of Health, 1900-1901; appointed Principal Medical Officer, Local Government Board, 1908; served for ten years in this post dealing particularly with tuberculosis, maternity and child-welfare, and venereal diseases; served on Army Sanitary Committee with rank of Lt Col, Royal Army Medical Corps, 1914-1918; knighted, 1917; also Examiner in Public Health to the University of Cambridge, Examiner in State Medicine, University of London, Examiner in Preventive Medicine, University of Oxford, and Consulting Medical Officer Westminster and Battersea Training Colleges; served on General Medical Council, 1909-1919; retired 1919; Lecturer on Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 1920-1921; continued to write and lecture on public health, with visits to other countries, including the Soviet Union in 1933; died, Worthing, 17 May 1943. Publications: Hygiene (1884); School Hygiene (1887); The Elements of Vital Statistics (1889);Vital Statistics of Peabody Buildings' Journal of the Statistical Society (1891); The Alleged Increase of Cancer', with G. King (Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1893); Natural History and Affinities of Rheumatic Fever (Milroy Lecture, 1895); Epidemic Diphtheria: a Research on the Origin and Spread of the Disease from an International Standpoint (1898); The Prevention of Phthisis, with special reference to its Notification to the MOH (1899);An Inquiry into the Principal Causes of the Reduction of the Death-Rate from Phthisis' Journal of Hygiene (1906); The Prevention of Tuberculosis (1908); The Brighton Life Tables, 1881-1890 and 1891-1923; The Ministry of Health (1925); Evolution of Preventive Medicine (1927); The Story of Modern Preventive Medicine (1929); International Studies on the Relation between the Private and Official Practice of Medicine (3 vols, 1931); Medicine and the State with J A Kingsbury (1932); American Addresses on Health and Insurance (1920); Red Medicine with J. A. Kingsbury (1934); Fifty Years in Public Health (1935); The Last Thirty Years in Public Health (1936).
Max Joseph von Pettenkofer was born in southern Germany in 1818; attended high school in Munich and then studied pharmacy, natural science and medicine, qualifying with a Phd in medicine, surgery and midwifery, 1843. Pettenkofer then applied to join Liebig's laboratory at Giessen, having to wait two years to enter. During these two years he studied at Würzberg, devising the test for bile acid that bears his name and started research into meat juices which inspired Liebig to investigate them.
Pettenkofer left Giessen to seek better-paid employment in Munich; was appointed Extraordinary Professor of Pathological Chemistry at the University of Munich, 1847 and was promoted to Ordinary Professor 8 years later. Pettenkofer became Chief of the Court Pharmacy and Apothecary to the Court, 1850 and began investigating John Snow's thesis that cholera and typhoid were water-borne, following epidemics in Munich. Results of his investigation convinced him that the cause lay in the moisture content of the soil which varied with the rise and fall of ground water. Despite his fallacious theories Pettenkofer's sanitary work improved the health of Munich. Pettenkofer refused to believe in the germ theory and is said to have drunk a vial of water contaminated by Vibrio cholerae which was sent to him by Robert Koch, assuring Koch that he remained in his usual good health. There is a theory that this was a death wish in disguise as he later committed suicide in 1901.
Publications: Cholera: how to prevent and resist it (Baillière Tindall, & Cox, London, 1883); Outbreak of cholera among convicts : an etiological study of the influence of dwelling, food, drinking-water, occupation, age, state of health, and intercourse upon the course of cholera in a community living in precisely the same circumstances (Asher, London, 1876) and The value of health to a city: two lectures delivered in 1873 (Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1941).
William Norman Pickles, born 6 March 1885 in Leeds; educated at Leeds Grammar School and studied medicine at the medical school of the then Yorkshire College. In his third year he proceeded with his clinical studies at the Leeds General Infirmary, where he qualified as a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1909. After serving as resident obstetric officer at the Infirmary, he began a series of temporary jobs and locums in general practice. In 1910 he graduated MB BS London and became MD in 1918. His first visit to Aysgarth, Yorkshire, was as a locum for Dr Hime in 1912. After serving as a ship's doctor on a voyage to Calcutta, he returned to Aysgarth later that year as second assistant to Dr Hime. In 1913 he and the other assistant Dean Dunbar were able to purchase the practice. Pickles served as general practitioner in Aysgarth until he retired in 1964. His only break was when, interrupted by World War One, he served as surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteers.
In 1926 Pickles read and was inspired by 'The Principles of Diagnosis and Treatment in Heart Affections' by Sir James Mackenzie, who had made many important contributions to medical knowledge from his general practice in Burnley. An epidemic of catarrhal jaundice broke out in Wensleydale in 1929 affecting two hundred and fifty people out of a population of five thousand seven hundred. Pickles was able to trace the whole epidemic to a girl who he had seen in bed on the morning of a village fete and who he never thought would get up that day. In this enclosed community Pickles was able to trace and to establish the long incubation for this disease of 26 to 35 days. He published an account of the epidemic in the British Medical Journal, 24 May 1930. Two years later he published record of an outbreak of Sonne dysentery and in 1933 he recorded in the British Medical Journal the first out break of Bornholm disease (Epidemic Myalgia). His first published medical paper, on Vincent's disease, was published in the Royal Naval Medical Journal in 1918.
In 1935 Pickles described some of his work to the Royal Society of Medicine. After this meeting a leading article in the British Medical Journal stated 'It may mark the beginning of a new era in epidemiology'. Major Greenwood, an outstanding epidemiologist of the time, suggested that he should write a book on his observations, which was published in 1939 as Epidemiology in Country Practice. It became a medical classic [and is still in print today], establishing Pickles's reputation. It showed how a country practice could be a field laboratory with unique opportunities for epidemiologists.
Pickles was Milroy lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians of London (1942) and Cutter lecturer at Harvard University (1948). In 1946 he shared the Stewart prize of the British Medical Association with Major Greenwood, in 1953 the Bisset-Hawkins medal of the Royal College of Physicians, and in 1955 he was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and was awarded the first James Mackenzie medal. He was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Leeds University in 1950, and in 1957 was appointed CBE. He became the first President of the College of General Practitioners in 1953, a post he held until 1956. He sat on numerous committees including the General Health Services Council and Register General's Advisory Committee and lectured extensively both at home and abroad. Pickles died 2 March 1969.
John Gordon Thomson was born in Linlithgowshire; graduated with an MA from Edinburgh University in 1903, and 5 years later qualified in medicine. After house appointments, he went to Liverpool as research student in tropical medicine in 1910, becoming pathologist to the Royal Southern Hospital and research fellow at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. With a Beir Memorial research fellowship he went to the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1914; went to Egypt with Professor Robert Leiper on the bilharzia mission as Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, 1915. Later in the war he and his brother, Dr David Thomson, who had both enjoyed the patronage of Ronald Ross when they first went to Liverpool, worked at the War Office malaria research laboratories. After the war he was appointed Chair of Protozoology at the London School where he was a gifted teacher, maintaining a collection of cultures of trypanosomes and other pathological organisms and blood films for teaching purposes.
In 1926 he was exchange lecturer in protozoology at the School of Hygiene, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. In 1936 he gave a series of lectures at Singapore for the League of Nations Special Course on Malaria. He travelled widely in South America and other tropical countries. In 1921-1922 he undertook two expeditions to Rhodesia to study blackwater fever. In 1926 he was in the West Indies, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Panama.
His publications include a book with Andrew Robertson, Protozoology for Medical Men. His contributions to the knowledge of blackwater fever were regarded as standard, while his methods of enumerating malaria parasites in the blood and cultivating these organisms were of great importance. Thomson died in 1937.
Rowland Hill is remembered today as a key reformer of the British Postal Service. In 1840, he introduced the Universal Penny Postage which decreed that letters of a given weight should all cost the same to send, regardless of the distance. For example, letters up to ½ ounce cost 1d (14gms/0.5p) to send and postage was prepaid, using the world's first adhesive stamp.
He first advocated his plan in a pamphlet published in 1837 and the system was recommended for adoption by a Committee of the House of Commons the following year and put into effect in 1840. Hill was appointed as adviser to the Treasury to introduce the postal reforms. He strove to create a more efficient postal service that everyone could afford. His reforms ranged from encouraging people to insert letter boxes in their front doors to creating London's first postal districts. The appointment was terminated following a change of government in 1842. He was recalled to the Post Office in 1846 and appointed Secretary to the Postmaster General, and succeeded Colonel Maberly as Secretary to the Post Office in 1854. He retired from Office in 1864 and died in August, 1879.
Over the centuries there have been hundreds of different ways that messages have been carried and sent. By the early 1830s typeprinting of Telegraphs was happening in Europe, and in 1889 an English model of one of these machines was introduced to the Post Office by (Mr) Hughes.
By 1913 the Post Office was looking at ways of improving the speed of its operation and it was not long before the 'Teleprinter' was introduced by Creed. This machine possessed a typewriter keyboard and could be operated to approximately sixty five words a minute. This machine printed the Telegram ready for delivery. This was a great boost to the efficiency of the system. It was adopted by the Post Office and used by its telegraph services.
The Post Office wanted to encourage the use of the Telegraph and in the early days reduced rates and employed more operators in order to reduce delay. They improved the working areas, and introduced motor cycles to speed up delivery. By the 1930s they were introducing beautifully decorated Greeting cards for sending on special occasions. These continued until the late 1960s when the numbers being sent reduced.
In the early 1980s and through to the 1990s there was liaison with British Telecom in order to introduce a 'Telemessage Service'. This was similar to the Greetings Telegram and a variety of designs were produced for various events like 'Weddings', '21st Birthday' and 'New Arrival'.