Report : 1924 / Middlesex Hospital.

  • Middlesex Hospital
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report : 1924 / Middlesex Hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    163/296 page 153
    A SHOET HISTORY or UlMksei -f— I. THE MIDDLESEX HOSPITAL was founded in the month of August, 1745, Founding in order to provide for the needs of Sick and Lame Patients of the poor ^ inhabitants of the then fairly populous districts of St. Giles and Soho. For 1745: ’ ten years it consisted of two houses in Windmill Street, Tottenham Court windmill Road, which had been acquired from Mr. Goodgb at a rental of £30 a year, Street, and during the first year of its existence it was styled “ The Middlesex Infirmary.” It formed one of several similar philanthropic institutions which, about this period, were established in London and maintained by voluntary contributions. It is interesting to note that with very little, if any, material change the constitution which was framed at its origin has been maintained for The tion and Middlesex Hospital to the present day. Then, as now, every annual subscriber of three guineas was granted the privileges of a Governor, and Quarterly Courts were held for the purpose of electing annually the Weekly Board of Management, appointing the Honorary Staff, and receiving from the Board an account of its transactions during the previous quarter. In 1752 a by-law was enacted which forbade any medical officer or servant from acting as a Governor, a restriction which no longer obtains so far as thg honorary officers are concerned. The first President was the second Duke its first OF Portland, whose tenure of office was not, however, destined to he of long President, duration. In 1747 it was resolved to appropriate one-third of the beds to Lying-in The Lying. Married Women, and two Medical men were appointed to the charge of that Depart- Ward, it being stipulated that no “woman-midwife be permitted to act as midwife to this Hospital.’* The popularity of this extension of the original objects of the Institution proved to be nearly the cause of its downfall. For, owing to the demands on the resources of the new Department, a project was Abortive entertained to provide further accommodation for these cases by erectino- a permanent building on a site to the east of Tottenham Court Road, a scheme which had to be abandoned from lack of funds. Nevertheless a determined attempt, energetically promoted by the then Physician, Dr. Cox, to convert
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