Royal Masonic Hospital, London

Proposals for a Freemasons' Hospital and Nursing Home were made by Major Charles Heaton-Ellis, Percy Still and four other members of Malmesbury Lodge, No. 3156, London at an installation meeting in 1911, recommending that, ‘Bros A[rchibald] D Ryder, C[harles] H[erbert] Thorpe, Major K[enneth] R[obert] Balfour, Sir C[harles] Heaton-Ellis, A[ugustus] Turner and Percy Still, be appointed a Committee of the Lodge to formulate a scheme for the suggested Masonic Nursing Home, and be empowered to take such steps as may seem necessary or desirable in the promotion of the scheme.’ By 5 March 1913 the Quarterly Communications of the United Grand Lodge of England recorded that, ‘Grand Lodge views with approval the praiseworthy efforts of certain Brethren to establish a Masonic Nursing Home, and recommends the Scheme to the favourable attention of the Craft at large.’ By 1916 fundraising began for the proposed Freemasons' Hospital and Nursing Home but the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 led to a change in plans. In consequence, the United Grand Lodge of England proposed running and meeting the expenses of a hospital for the War Office, provided the government department located appropriate premises. The former Chelsea Hospital for Women, at 237 Fulham Road, Chelsea was acquired by Grand Lodge with the assistance of the War Office for £10,000. This hospital had been constructed in 1880 to 1883 on a plot of land on the south side of Fulham Road and was designed by the architect, J T Smith. The first hospital in London built especially for diseases specific to women, it offered a free ward funded by a Samaritan fund, and featured red brick facings, stone dressings and decorative elements, with spaces for sixty three beds. In 1891 Earl Cadogan led an appeal to raise funds to construct a larger hospital facility, as it was assisting 500 in patients and 12,000 out patients each year and the operating theatre was enlarged in 1899.

From 1911 the Women's Hospital relocated to a new site provided by Earl Cadogan in Arthur (later Dovehouse) Street, near the Royal Marsden and Royal Brompton Hospitals, which opened in 1916. After the relocation of the Chelsea Hospital for Women, the Fulham Road premises became the Freemasons' War Hospital and Nursing Home. The Freemasons' War Hospital opened in September 1916 and HRH King George V and HM Queen Mary visited soon afterwards. During the First World War, the Freemasons' Hospital treated over 4,000 members of the armed forces under a team of doctors, including Dr [Robert Maxwell] Chance and Dr Dobson, Red Cross nurses, Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurses, led by a Matron, Miss Minnie Evelyn Windemer (1877-1923). In 1918 the Bishop of London offered additional hospital facilities at Fulham Palace, which became known as the Freemasons' Hospital No. 2, which opened on 27 April, with Mrs Maude Minnie Fox-Symons (1868-1957), wife of the military surgeon, Sir Robert Fox-Symons (1870-1932), wartime head of the Auxilliary Home Hospital Department of the British Red Cross, as Matron. Rooms at the Palace were converted into wards and a wooden sign, entitled 'Fortitude', now on display at the Museum of Fulham Palace, hung in the drawing room. In addition a third hospital opened for convalescents at Cliff House, Caversham, near Reading. Records including details about the Freemasons' War Hospital in this collection include minute books of the general committee, medical advisory committee, an investments ledger, cash books, a diary noting Matron's weekly reports and ephemera collated by Percy Still. The minute books and investment ledger continue in use after the formation of the Freemasons' Hospital and Nursing Home after the war in 1919.

By the Autumn of 1919, the premises at 237 Fulham Road re-opened as the Freemasons’ Hospital and Nursing Home, with facilities for 46 in-patients, who had to be freemasons, their wives or dependent children. The Hospital was established as an endowment fund, in order that annual appeals would not be required. Some record series, such as the Medical Advisory Committee minutes, investment ledgers and visitors' books, which commence during the years of the Freemasons' War Hospital continue, additional record series commence in the early 1920's including the minutes of governors' meetings, Board of Management minutes, House Committee minutes, Finance Committee minutes, Building and Premises Committee minutes, propaganda committee minutes and nursing staff registers. Patients were asked to pay fees according to their means and a separate Samaritan Fund was established to assist those who were unable to pay, generated by individual donations as well as Lodge collections. Lodges which contributed 100 Guineas to the Hospital Endowment Fund became known as ‘Founding Lodges’. Founding Lodges were entitled to send representatives to the Hospital management board, with numbers of representatives depending on the levels of contribution made. The first Masonic patient was Mrs Fry, wife of Arthur, a member of Berries Lodge, No. 2928, Berkshire, who was admitted on 7 June 1920. Her consultant was the gynaecologist, Victor Bonney (1872-1953). In 1924 a permanent constitution for the Hospital was adopted and a Student Nurses Association was formed in 1926-1927. Structural alterations were made to enlarge the Fulham Road premises in 1928 but a search began for a new site to erect a Hospital ‘worthy of the craft’.

In 1929 an extension fund was established to raise an endowment capital fund to ensure the Hospital was self-supporting and a permanent Commemorative Jewel was issued to fund raisers, the only jewel issued by the Hospital. It was designed by C L Doman, the artist responsible for the Armistice Medal issued after the First World War. The jewel included an image of the hospital motto, ‘Humanity tending the sick’ or in Latin, ‘Aegros Sanat Humanitas’. The jewel ribbon, dark blue with light blue strip down the centre, was attached by means of a pentalpha, or 5-pointed star, long recognised as a symbol of health. In 1931 land overlooking Ravenscourt Park was identified as a site for a new Hospital, offering accomodation for 180 beds and much improved working facilities, and an Appeal was launched to raise £250,000. On 19 May 1932 a foundation stone, connected electrically to a replica stone at Olympia, was laid by the Grand Master, HRH the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn at a significant Masonic gathering, attended by over 12,000 people, including four Royal princes. A solid block of Lunel marble, engraved with lines from the poet, Rudyard Kipling, ‘By mine own work before the night, Great Overseer, I make my prayer’, supported a bronze and crystal casket containing an illuminated Roll of the Founding Lodges of the original Hospital at Chelsea. The stone stood on a base of Hopton Wood marble from Derbyshire, with an engraving around the base with the line, ‘Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it.’ On 12 July 1933 King George V, accompanied by Queen Mary, officially opened the Hospital, announcing that it was to be known as, The Royal Masonic Hospital. The opening ceremony included a performance by the Band of HM Grenadier Guards. The first 75 patients arrived in November 1933, while thirty two patients continued to be treated at the Fulham Road premises, sold for £17,500 to pay for the proposed new Nurses’ Home at Ravenscourt Park.

The new hospital site, which occupied 10 acres, included accommodation for some 200 patients, with special departments for an X-ray unit and other facilities, costing £335,000. Nurses continued to reside at Fulham Road until Christmas 1937 and the premises were purchased and adapted for use the following year by the Chester Beatty Cancer Research Institute, later known as The Institute of Cancer Research. The striking architecture of the new building at Ravenscourt Park was created in a modern international Art Deco style by the architects, Sir John Burnet RA, Tait and Lorne, who won the London Architectural Medal for their work and was built by John Mowlem and Co Ltd. The site was deisgned to American hospital practice standards, comprising four principal building units linked by glass bridges on a cross-axial layout. It featured lavish decoration, influenced by the work of the Dutch architect, W Dudok, and clad with expensive hand-made red bricks. The Art Deco styled entrance featured concrete figures, representing Healing (Aesculapius) and Charity (Hygeia), on pillars designed by Gilbert William Bayes RA (1872–1953). An acid-etched window depicted Aesculapius surrounded by signs of the zodiac. The 50ft high entrance hall had the appearance of a cinema foyer, lined with Lunel, Hopton Wood and Botticino marbles. The Board and conference rooms on either side of the hall featured Australian walnut panelling, decorated with Indian Coramandel wood. A marble relief by C L Doman, included the design of the Commemorative jewel of the Hospital, ‘Humanity tending the sick’ or in Latin, ‘Aegros Sanat Humanitas’. The structural engineer responsible for the steel frame of the building was Sven Bylander, responsible for the innovative work at the Ritz Hotel and Selfridges department store.

The Hospital was designed by Thomas Smith Tait (1882–1954) and Sir John James Burnet (1857–1938), a Glaswegian who had trained in Paris, the architect of the King Edward VII extension to the British Museum. The Princess Royal Children’s wards on third floor of the Hospital included mural paintings by Reginald Lewis (girls' ward) and hand-painted tiles of animals. Kitchens on the fourth floor included special facilities for Jewish patients requiring kosher food. A nurses’ home was added to side of the Hospital site, now Grade II listed, in 1937. The following year this was opened on 25 May by the Princess Royal, providing accommodation for 200 sisters, nurses and domestic staff, with music performed by the Band of HM Grenadier Guards. Connected to the Hospital by a subway, the new Nurses Home facility included the Elford Recreation Room, a Silver Jubilee Room and roof top gardens. During the Second World War from September 1939, the Royal Masonic Hospital in London treated, at no cost to the government, 8,640 servicemen, including over 600 American officers and other allies from 1941 onwards. 150 beds were made available for service personnel, at first other ranks and then officers after the Dunkirk retreat. During the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, many fighter pilots were treated, including burns victims such as Flight Lieutenant Richard Hope Hillary (1919-1943), author of The Last Enemy, recently rewritten by Sebastian Faulkes as The Fatal Englishman. Others treated included P/O Donald Mclntosh Gray of 610 Squadron, who died in a flying accident on 5 November 1940 and General Giffard Martel, former head of the military mission to Moscow, who received eye surgery at the Hospital as he informed the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in a letter dated 1944.

Also treated were members of the allied Resistance, some of whom had been tortured in Nazi concentration camps. Churchill visited the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Dudley Pound, just before he died in October 1943. In the autumn of 1941, before his death, HRH the Duke of Kent visited all the patients at the Royal Masonic Hospital. In 1944 the Duchess of Kent visited the Hospital and the Nurses’ Home. One nurse, Jeanne Hyatt, recorded details about life at the Hospital during wartime as part of the BBC’s WWII People’s War, ‘I was in my last year of training at the Royal London Hospital when war broke out. I was moved to the Royal Masonic Hospital at Hammersmith in 1941, which experienced the worst of the London blitz and lasted every night for 3 to 4 months. It didn't stop us going out, we just hoped for the best. I can clearly remember the awful fires and the total devastation of huge areas of bombing, much of it residential. Travelling by tube was the safest way. One night my train was stopped because of the bombing, so a very kind stationmaster let me sleep on a couch in his little office, and even bought me a cup of tea in the morning. At least the bombing eased off a little bit the next day and I felt like a holiday so I headed off to my parents home in the Hampshire countryside.’ During Word War II the Hospital treated 8,640 casualties, a fact recorded on a plaque unveiled by The Secretary of State for War, Rt. Hon Emanuel Shinwell, MP on 10 June 1946, above the Hospital reception desk. The armed services provided a short-wave diathermy set for use in the physiotherapy department. In 1948 the School of Nursing opened, with priority given to pupils from the Royal Masonic Institution for Girls's school at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. The first nurses qualified in 1952.

After training Royal Masonic Hospital nurses wore a distinctive Masonic blue uniform, with a silver belt buckle incorporating a square and compasses motif. Miss W L Huntly, known as Peter, was appointed as the Principal Tutor. On 10 August 1949 twenty student nurses arrived but the introduction of a 10pm curfew proved an irritation to many and all male visitors were banned from bedrooms. Nurses once had to remove capes when speaking to a Sister, a rule later removed. Photographs of nursing sets taken on Prize Day from 1952 to 1976 are included in this archive collection at GBR 1991 RMH 5/2/1-24. On 17 March 1953 the Royal Masonic Hospital Convalescent Home opened at Frinton-at-Sea, Essex to ease bed pressure at the Ravenscourt Park site. The Home provided spaces for fifteen patients and remained open until 20 January 1973. By 1956 long waiting lists restricted access to Hospital facilities and an extension, known as the Wakefield Wing, was planned at a cost of £650,000. A foundation stone for the new extension, built by the same architects, was laid by the Grand Master, Lawrence Roger Lumley, 11th Earl of Scarbrough. Life Governors of the Hospital, who donated an additional amount each year or subscribed by covenant, were awarded a bar to add to the Permanent Commemorative Jewel from 1 January 1956. On 10 December 1958 HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, opened the Wakefield Wing, providing eighty additional beds and the new School of Nursing, Physiotherapy and Hydrotherapy departments, and the Bishop of London dedicated the new Chapel. In 1962 the Royal Masonic Hospital League of Nurses was founded by a former Matron, Dorothy Brand and Miss Huntly was appointed its Life President.

In 1963 a Rehabilitation Unit opened in the Wakefield Wing providing care for non-acute illnesses with specialised treatment and nursing. An Intensive Care Unit opened in 1966, which was extended at a later date to cope with demand. Close Circuit Television (CCTV) was introduced at an early date to monitor patients. In 1967 Mr Smart, appointed Chief Administrator of the Hospital, lived with his wife Isabel at Royal Masonic Hospital House until October 1976. He gave lectures to Lodges about the work of the Hospital. The Cantores Medicini, a choir comprising nurses, doctors and medical students was formed at the Hospital by Dr Roy Stoddard, a medical student at the Royal Free Hospital and later Medical Director at the Royal Masonic Hospital. The choir issued three albums of carols and sacred music of the sixteenth century which formed part of their repertoire and was performed at cathedrals countrywide. Following the establishment of the Redevelopment and Modernisation Committee in the late 1960's, an initiative driven by Frank William Radford Douglas (1897-1971), a Redevelopment and Modernisation Fund Appeal was launched on 1 January 1970, aimed at enabling the Hospital to meet the latest hospital management and medical standards. An organisation and management working party met during the 1970's to encourage efficiencies and updated working methods. A Redevelopment Fund jewel was issued by the Hospital and the Redevelopment and Modernisation Fund merged with the main Hospital appeal fund in December 1976. Due to inflation, the costs for modernisation, estimated as £2 million in 1970, rose to £4 million by 1973. This target was reached by 1976 but by that date an additional £5 million was required to upgrade Hospital facilities. In 1972 the Association of Friends of the Royal Masonic Hospital was formed, with volunteers running a Hospital shop and library, with tours provided for members on Saturday afternoons.

All the Hospital committees were reconstituted on 7 October 1975, following the Hospital modernisation and redevelopment campaign. Committees dating from this period include the Executive and Finance Committee and investment sub-committee, Building and Premises sub-committee, Treasurer's Advisory sub-committee, Patients' Services sub-committee [Minutes 1975 to 1982, see GBR 1991 RMH 1/2/14/1], Support Services sub-committee [Minutes 1975 to 1983, see GBR 1991 RMH 1/2/15/1], Nursing sub-committee, Medical Staff sub-committee, Appeals sub-committee and Building and Premises Committee. Given the distances travelled by some patients to the Hospital, limited on-site accommodation was introduced at a modest fee for patients’ relatives. By 1979, some 4,715 patients were being treated a year, 2,387 from the London area, 2,253 from the Provinces and 75 from Districts Overseas, and from 1977 some 349 non-Masons were accepted as fee-paying patients if members did not require beds. The cost of maintaining each patient had risen to £475 per week. As spiraling inflation devalued investments, capital funds had to be used to cover costs. Patient income declined, with 80% of brethren being subsidised by the Craft. By 1979 there were 7,487 Patron Lodges but only 4,869 Grand Patron Lodges, each of which contributed £420 each year. The Percy Still Wing, comprising four new operating theatres and Pathology Laboratories designed by the architects, Watkins Gray Woodgate International, were opened on 1 December 1976 by the Grand Master, HRH the Duke of Kent, President of the Hospital. Due to inflation, the costs had risen to over £6 million. In 1979 the School of Nursing became the Royal Masonic Hospital and Roehampton School of Nursing, a unique partnership between an independent hospital and a National Health Service (NHS) District.

The training programme was extended to include pupil nurse training, enabling both student and pupil nurses to gain experience at the Royal Masonic Hospital, Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton and St John’s Hospital, Battersea and within the community, with all three locations providing training venues. Frank Douglas Court was constructed to provide modern flats for nurses. By October 1980 the Hospital renovation works were completed, increasing bed capacity from 205 to 273 but £1.5 million remained to be found to complete the renovation and modernisation programme. By this date annual running costs reached £4 million, with the Hospital employing approximately 700 staff, with responsibility for numerous pensioners. The Hospital was the largest independent hospital in Britain and the only private medical facility to offer a Nurses’ Training School linked to a National Health Service hospital to facilitate experience and training. A new permanent Appeal Committee for the Hospital was established under Alan Raymond Mais (1911-1993), Lord Mais, as Chairman. In 1982 Michael Richardson MD was appointed Chairman of the Hospital and served as Governor from September 1986. In 1983 the Golden Jubilee of the Hospital was celebrated by a concert at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring the Band of the Welsh Guards, the Band of the Irish Guards, the Basingstoke Male Voice Choir, Cantores Medicini, London Welsh Male Voice Choir, the jazz pianist Jack Dieval (1920-2012), composer and arranger Geoff Love (1917-1991), the soprano Ava June Cooper (1931-2013) and the tenor, Ramon Remedios (b.1940). In 1984 a Committee of Inquiry was established, chaired by , recommending the sale of the Royal Masonic Hospital to American Medical International with the conversion of its assets into a Masonic insurance scheme. The closure campaign was supported by Grand Lodge but failed to succeed as only 69.6% of Hospital Governors voted in favour of this scheme rather than the required 75%.

The Bagnall Report in 1974 recommended accepting fee-paying patients, the amalgamation of the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution and the Royal Masonic Hospital to form the Masonic Foundation for the Aged and the Sick, which was formed in November 1979. A Committee of enquiry led by Sir Maurice Drake (The Hon. Mr Justice Drake) made further recommendations in 1984, published as the Drake Report. In consequence the High Court ordered a redrafting of the Hospital’s constitution and the election of a new board of management. In 1986 the Royal Masonic Hospital and the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution combined to form the Masonic Foundation for the Aged and the Sick. In March 1986 the Nurses’ Training School closed due to changes introduced by the General Nursing Council which stipulated a format for training facilities with which the Hospital was unable to comply. On 22 January, the Hospital Chairman and Trustees went to the High Court, where the vote for selling the Hospital was ruled invalid. As part of a campaign, led by Douglas Brooks of Oakwood, a Grand Vice-Patron of the Hospital, the proposed sale was stopped. The Board of Management of the Hospital agreed to the formation of three sub-committees, namely Policy and Resources, Premises and Estates and Finance Committee. Viscount Chelsea, Chairman of the Masonic Foundation for the Aged and the Sick, recommended the termination of this charity in December 1987 and a committee formed to consider this recommendation submitted a report from its chairman, Iain Ross Bryce (1936-2015), in March 1988. In consequence a new Chairman, Sir Bernard Chacksfield, was appointed to the Hospital in 1988.

Legal objections made by the group formed by Douglas Brooks led to a High Court judge setting specific terms for, and a date of, an election. At the same time, a Writ was issued by Richmond, Roehampton and Twickenham Area Health Authority of the National Health Service against the threat of the Royal Masonic Hospital withdrawing from its nurse training agreement commitments. The Hospital re-emerged with a new management structure and reorganisation in 1986 and records, such as minutes of a Finance sub-committee, Premises and Estates committee and Policy and Resources Committee in this collection relate to this period. In June 1989 an In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) clinic opened at the Hospital, which was run by Professor Robert Winston (b.1940) and Raul Adolfo Margara (b.1944) in a separate wing. The Unit, which achieved excellent success rates and developed ground-breaking fertilisation techniques, transferred to Hammersmith Hospital Trust in 1996. In November 1989 the management consultants, Touche Ross, prepared an independent review of all aspects of the Hospital. By 12 June 1989, the Hospital Board decided to separate the Samaritan Fund to safeguard its charitable assets, and transferred the operation of the Hospital to a company limited by guarantee, the Royal Masonic Hospital Limited.

Grand Lodge distanced itself from the Hospital, while recommending its closure and the safeguarding of its assets. The School of Nursing and Convalescent Home were replaced by two new wings. The Hospital, influenced by the Report of the Inquiry into London's Health Service, Medical Education and Research by Sir Bernard Tomlinson in October 1992, aimed to attract private and NHS patients, as well as members. It leased out part of the Ravenscourt Park site formerly known as the R Unit as the Stamford Wing, a 26-bed unit which treated psychiatric patients, including conditions such as anorexia and other eating disorders, run by Cygnet Health Care from October 1990. The unit employed two clinical psychologists, seven mental nurses and a therapist, with treatment provided for depression and alcohol problems. In 1992 Hospital catering was outsourced to Sutcliffe Catering and Charterhouse Clinical Research, seeking to expand the number of beds available, transferred to the Royal Masonic Hospital in March 1992. Led by Dr Jorg Taubel, the Charterhouse Clinical Research Unit was an independent research organisation facilitating drugs trials. In 1993 a Diamond Jubilee Appeal Fund was launched by the Hospital to refurbish the Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU), to build and equip a health centre at Sintana, Romania and to facilitate use of the Hospital by the local community and the National Health Service. A Grand Fete was held at the Ravenscourt Park site on 10 July 1993. The Hospital aimed to become the UK’s premier hospital for sports medicine, with Peter R Norman treating members of the Royal Ballet School, and negotiated the transfer of the National Sports Medicine Institute at St Batholomew's Hospital to the Royal Masonic Hospital under Professor Greg McLatchie. Plans for the Hospital site included an eye clinic, psychiatric wing and an ITU. A centre for alternative therapies, such as aromatherapy and reflexology to assist techniques and procedures, was also planned.

The International Federation of Aromatherapists​, based its department of continuing education at the Royal Masonic Hospital. Andrew T Austin, pioneered Neuro Linguistic Programming at the site from 1994 to 1995 and Stephen Brooks ran Ericksonian Hypnosis training courses. By this time 32% of patients were masons or their dependents and the Hospital sought to attract NHS patients. The Hospital employed sixty nurses, supervised by a Matron, Heather Cole, who introduced a quality assurance system of levels in patient care. A computer system introduced and an occupational health service for the London Borough of Hounslow. A laundry service was provided for Charing Cross Hospital and Ravenscourt Laboratories operated at the Hospital site on a contract basis as a clinical pathology facility, with a staff assisting pharmaceutical drug trials. In 1995 two Hospital nurses held the Guinness Book of Records' record for fastest time to make a hospital bed, 17.3 seconds, broken by Sister Sharon Stringer and Senior Staff Nurse Michel Ambler, in front of a live American audience. The Hospital site was used as a set for numerous films and television programmes including Jeeves and Wooster, Minder, Poirot, Rumpole of the Bailey, Kavanagh QC and Simon Brett’s How to be a Little Sod. The Hospital also served as a venue for Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons examinations. Despite numerous attempts to generate sufficient income to become self-financing, the Hospital proved unable to maintain its independent private status and a decision was taken to close the facility. In 1996 a consultants farewell dinner was held and the Hospital contents and equipment were sold in April 1997.

In 2001 the Charity Commission appointed a receiver, Price Waterhouse Cooper and manager to take control of the Royal Masonic Hospital Association of Friends. The building became known as the Stamford Hospital and in 2002 was acquired by the Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust on a 15-year lease to help cut operation waiting times. The Ravenscourt Park Hospital, with six theatres and 105 beds, was improved at a cost of £14 million to help to cut waiting lists for operations. However the anticipated NHS shortages of capacity did not materialise and Ravenscourt Park lacked the supply of patients to make the investment work. In 2006 the NHS announced the closure of this facility. During its four years as an NHS facility, the Hospital conducted 18,500 operations, an average of about 4,500 a year. However, this proved uneconomic and the Hospital, losing about £12 million a year, proved unable to treat 11,000 to 12,000 patients each year in order to break even, despite being sent patients from other regional hospitals.