Catalogue description RECORDS RELATING TO THE HERTFORDSHIRE WORKHOUSE HOSPITALS

1 ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS

A Minute Books

2 FINANCIAL RECORDS

A General financial records

3 PATIENT REGISTERS

A In-patient Registers

B Register of Military Cases

4 STAFF RECORDS

5 MISCELLANEOUS

For further details of the Boards of Guardians in Hertfordshire, and records relating to the workhouses see BG.

For records relating to the County Council's period of responsibility for the workhouse hospitals, see HSS3.

CONTENTS AND DETAILS OF HOSPITALS WHOSE RECORDS ARE CATALOGUED ELSEWHERE.

HW1 St Pauls Hospital Hemel Hempstead

Wellhouse Hospital Barnet

[For day books and registers of patients

1941-1946 see HSS3/2/1-3]

Haymeads Hospital Bishops Stortford

[For Masters journal 1935-1940 see HSS3/3/1]

Chalkdell Hospital/Lister Hospital Hitchin

[For minutes and other records 1930-1948 see HSS3/6/1-3, 7, 17-21]

Note that many other records relating to the workhouses and catalogued as HSS and BG refer to the workhouse infirmaries.

The workhouse hospitals were the main source of medical care for the "state" until the creation of the National Health Service in 1948. The voluntary hospitals only took patients who had been recommended by a subscriber (see introduction to HV) and if they were full they could turn patients away. They also refused to treat the long term chronically ill and infectious cases. The workhouse hospital, however, was not permitted to turn any patient away however ill they were.

When the union workhouses were first planned following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 it was initially recommended that no Union should be forced to provide an infirmary for the care of the sick, although many of the workhouses had sick wards. These wards were very badly equipped and usually had no nursing staff, the fit paupers being expected to nurse the sick. By 1842, however, the Guardians had begun to recognise the need for medical provision in the workhouses.

In 1930, under the Local Government Board Act of 1929, the Poor Law Unions were officially abolished and their responsibilities, including the infirmaries, passed to the County Council. On 5 July 1948 responsibility for hospitals, including both workhouse hospitals and voluntary hospitals passed to the Minister of Health when the National Health Service was created. Large general infirmaries, like St Paul's Hospital, became general hospitals, while the smaller union buildings became old people's homes or geriatric units.