Catalogue description Newcastle General Hospital

This record is held by Tyne and Wear Archives

Details of HO.NGH
Reference: HO.NGH
Title: Newcastle General Hospital
Description:

HO.NGH/1-HO.NGH/41 Building of New Hospital

 

HO.NGH/42-HO.NGH/65 Building of New Nurses Home

 

HO.NGH/66-HO.NGH/91 Patients Registers and Departmental records

 

HO.NGH/124-HO.NGH/135 Nursing Department

 

HO.NGH/92-HO.NGH/104 Official openings and publicity

 

HO.NGH/105-HO.NGH/107 HO.NGH/150 year celebrations

 

HO.NGH/108-HO.NGH/123 Photographs
Date: 1868 - 1990s
Related material:

See also accession 444 - Newcastle City Health Department and DF/HUR - the papers of George Hurrell M D.
Held by: Tyne and Wear Archives, not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Creator:

Newcastle General Hospital
Physical description: 123 SERIES
Immediate source of acquisition:

Accessions 2871 (part), 2045, 1638, T364, 1699 (part), 2709 (part), 2513 (part), 359 (part), 2759, 2517, 2805, 2859, 3106 (part), 3289 (part)
Subjects:
  • Health services
  • Clinical medicine
  • Nursing
  • Patients
  • Health policy
  • Diseases
  • Medical sciences
  • Preventive medicine
Administrative / biographical background:

In 1839 the Newcastle Board of Guardians decided to build a Union Workhouse on Westgate Hill to centralise facilities for Newcastle's poor who were at that time being cared for in the inadequate poor houses of St John's, St Nicholas', St Andrew's and All Saints' parishes.

 

The first buildings to be completed were the Administration Block, a school for children and the workhouse which was to give accommodation to the able-bodied poor and care for the sick poor, maternity cases and imbeciles.

 

By 1859 it had become apparent that facilities for the sick within the workhouse were most undesirable and so the Board of Guardians gave the go-ahead for a separate hospital to be built.

 

The hospital was designed by the Newcastle architect Septimus Oswald and was officially opened on 7 December 1870 by Thomas Ridley, Chairman of the Board of Guardians.

 

By the beginning of the first World War, much development of the site had taken place providing about 500 beds in 5 buildings. These were: the workhouse hospital, wards 1 - 8; the Isolation wards, wards 13 and 14; "D" block - the urological department; a new Infirmary, wards 17 - 21; and the maternity department.

 

In 1921 an Administration separate from the Workhouse was set up and the name changed to "Wingrove Hospital". This was to remove the stigma of the workhouse.

 

In 1930 the hospital was handed over to the City Council under the Local Government Act of 1930 which abolished the Board of Guardians and its name was again changed to "The General Hospital". In 1948 it became part of the National Health Service.
Link to NRA Record:

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