The history of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital : from its foundation in 1752 to the present time, with an account of its objects and present state / by Thomas Ryan.

  • Ryan, Thomas.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of Queen Charlotte's Lying-in Hospital : from its foundation in 1752 to the present time, with an account of its objects and present state / by Thomas Ryan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    It will probably occur to the reader that with the gallows quite close and a burial ground at the back, the spot was not particularly well chosen for establishing a Lying-in Hospital, a view to which I am rather disposed to incline. Very likely this consideration prompted the Committee to change ■ their quarters and go further west. Thither we will now follow them, as there are no Reports, Minute Books, or other papers of interest procurable relating to the Charity while it was situated in St. George's Row, and nothing deserving of mention is known of its history at that early period of its existence, except that in 1787 two eminent Frenchmen, Messrs. Tenon and Colomb, who had been appointed by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris to visit every Hospital in the United Kingdom, and to make a particular and minute report and description of each Institution on their return, visited the Hospital in St. George's Row. The date of the visit was the 9th June, and the visitors were attended on the occasion by Dr. Walsh.* The Hospital was removed to Bayswater in 1791. From this date much more is known of its history and work (though for a few years there is still much obscurity) as all the histories of London from 1790 mention it, as well as many other works relating to the metropolis. For a long time, however, I was unable to discover its exact situation. The Minute Books, which were excellently kept, have been preserved from 1809, but although they are full of information the address of the Charity is not given. In fact every document I could find at the Hospital referring to this period described it merely as the Bayswater Lying-in Hospital, and this was doubtless sufficiently exact for all purposes at that time, when the houses at Bayswater were very few and far between. When looking over some old papers, which had most fortunately escaped destruction years ago, I found a single dirty page torn from a copy of the Laws of the Charity, dated 1809, on which I read as follows:— Patients are admitted, by letters of recommendation from a subscriber, at the General Lying-In Hospital, Bayswater Hall. This was a start for which I was sufficiently thankful, and as the quantity of papers was large I carefully preserved them till opportunity for further search should present itself. On the next occasion I found a draft of a letter which seems to have been sent to the clergy asking them to preach sermons on behalf of the Charity, in which it is described as the Queen's General Lying-In Hospital, Bayswater Gate. In a tender for butchers' meat which I found the same day, it is called the Queen's General Lying-In Hospital at Bayswater Hall. It may be mentioned in passing, that the price at which this worthy butcher—one Barnard Brooke—engaged to supply prime joints, was 7d. per lb., with a deduction of 2^ per cent, if payment * The Gentleman's Magazine, 1787.