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Bishop's Stortford Isolation Hospital

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Alternative name(s):
  • Hadham and Stansted Joint Isolation Hospital (Also known as)
Date: 1906-1938
History: The Bishops Stortford Isolation Hospital (also known as the Hadham and Stansted Joint Isolation Hospital) was erected between 1902 and 1906 at a cost of about £1800. It was situated on the Great Hadham Road, Thorley. It was managed by the Bishops Stortford Isolation Hospital Committee, consisting of representatives from Sawbridgeworth Urban District Council, Bishops Stortford Urban District Council, Hadham Rural District Council and Stansted Rural District Council (Essex). It housed about twenty-seven patients. The hospital is said to have been closed and sold off in 1936.
Places:
  • Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire
  • Thorley, Hertfordshire
Sources of authority: Poor Law Amendment Act 1868; Public Health Act 1875; Isolation Hospitals Act 1893; Public Health Act 1936
Functions, occupations and activities: Health and social care > Hospitals
Historical context: Many towns had some form of isolation hospital from the eighteenth century, usually in the form of a pest house, where verminous or infectious people were treated. It was not, however, until the late nineteenth century that the formal treatment of infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever, typhoid and smallpox, was considered. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1868 dealt briefly with the subject, since most patients with infectious diseases found their way into the workhouse infirmaries because voluntary hospitals could and did refuse to admit them. In 1875 the Public Health Act enabled any local authority to provide hospital accommodation for the treatment of patients with infectious diseases paid for by the rates. It also allowed for two or more authorities to combine to maintain a hospital. In 1893 the first Act relating solely to isolation hospitals was enacted, stating that, on the application of twenty-five or more rate payers, the local authority was to provide an isolation hospital out of the rates, to be run by an Isolation Hospital Committee. Those suffering from TB found themselves in specially appointed sanatoriums and those suffering from VD in the workhouse infirmary. Isolation hospitals were also permitted to open schools or nursing to train nurses specifically in the treatment of infectious diseases. A further Act was enacted in 1901 reinforcing the powers of local authorities to purchase land compulsorily for use as an isolation hospital. In 1936 a further Public Health Act abolished all Isolation Hospital Committees and replaced them with Joint Hospital Boards. Medical advances meant that in the years after the Second World War the need to provide such hospitals became redundant, and many of them were closed in the first years of the National Health Service.
References: Hosprec database; A2A catalogue; Burdetts and Hospital Yearbooks 1901-1937
Name authority reference: GB/NNAF/C26177 (Former ISAAR ref: GB/NNAF/O91864 )
Collections
Number Description Held by Reference Further information
1
1906-38: minute book and financial records
Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies
HI 4
NRA 11973 Hertfordshire
Related record creators
  Record creator Description of relationship Dates Category of relationship
1
Bishop's Stortford Urban District Council
Bishop's Stortford Isolation Hospital was managed by the Bishop's Stortford Isolation Hospital Committee, consisting of representatives from Sawbridgeworth Urban District council, Bishop's Stortford Urban District Council, Hadham Rural District Council and Stansted Rural District Council (Essex).
c1902-1936
Hierarchical
2
Hadham Rural District Council
Bishops Stortford Isolation Hospital was managed by the Bishops Stortford Isolation Hospital Committee, consisting of representatives from Sawbridgeworth Urban District council, Bishops Stortford Urban District Council, Hadham Rural District Council and Stansted Rural District Council (Essex).
Hierarchical
3
Sawbridgeworth Urban District Council
Bishops Stortford Isolation Hospital was managed by the Bishops Stortford Isolation Hospital Committee, consisting of representatives from Sawbridgeworth Urban District council, Bishops Stortford Urban District Council, Hadham Rural District Council and Stansted Rural District Council (Essex).
c1902-1948
Hierarchical