Dennis Williams
Gone but not forgotten
Another two famous gentlemen of note...connected by an amazing sense of philanthropy....founders of the Saturday Fund, which is still going today...
First up.....Dr Joseph Sampson Gamgee, MRCS, FRSE (17 April 1828, Livorno, Italy – 18 September 1886) was a surgeon at the Queen's Hospital (later the General Hospital) in Birmingham, England. He pioneered aseptic surgery (having once shared lodgings with Joseph Lister), and, in 1880 invented Gamgee Tissue, an absorbent cotton wool and gauze surgical dressing. He was known as Sampson Gamgee. He lived at 22 Broad Street.
He was the son of Joseph Gamgee, a veterinary surgeon and the sibling of Dr John Gamgee, inventor and Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dick Veterinary College, Edinburgh and Dr Arthur Gamgee, Fullerian Professor of Physiology and Comparative Anatomy at The Royal Institution of Great Britain, London. Sampson's son Dr Leonard Parker Gamgee was also a renowned surgeon of Birmingham and his nephew (son of his sister Fanny Gamgee) was Prof Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948).
In 1873 he founded the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund which raised money for various hospitals in Birmingham from overtime earnings given by workers on nominated Hospital Saturdays. It was the first such fund to raise money in this way for multiple hospitals. Sampson was also the first president of the Birmingham Medical Institute.
He gave his name (indirectly, via the tissue) to the hobbit Sam Gamgee in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. There is a blue plaque commemorating him on the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and a library is dedicated to him in the Birmingham Medical Institute.
Sunday Fund
Unlike the General Hospital, which was funded by concerts of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festivals, the Queen's Hospital had no regular large-scale funding. There was a "subscription of artisans" in 1847 and fetes in Aston Hall in 1856 and 1857. In 1859 the rector of St Martin in the Bull Ring started the Hospital Sunday Fund with church collections donated to Queen's Hospital and other hospitals.
As the out-patient facilities at Queen's were grossly inadequate Sampson Gamgee, one of its surgeons, instigated the construction of a new out-patients wing and suggested engaging the help of the working classes in raising funds. At a meeting in Birmingham Town Hall in January 1869, chaired by George Dawson, Gamgee's suggestion was put forward and accepted. An amount of £3,500 was raised in 1871. The foundation stone was laid on 4 December 1871. The original fund was then disbanded in 1872. The wing cost £10,000 and was formally opened on 7 November 1873. More about that here:
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...highlight=Triennial Music Festival#post466474
Saturday Fund
On 6 January 1873 Sampson Gamgee raised the suggestion that 'everyone should work overtime for the hospitals on a particular annual Saturday afternoon, to be called "Hospital Saturday"'. This new scheme called the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund
The first meeting of the Hospital Saturday Fund was held on 6 January 1873. John Skirrow Wright was in the chair, Sampson Gamgee became Honorary Secretary and Robert McRae the paid assistant. Ambrose Biggs, as Mayor, accepted the office of President. Of the Committee that was assembled at that first meeting, two members, Councillor William Cook (later to become Sir William Cook) and Lawley Parker (Gamgee's brother-in-law) were destined to be for many years not only a part of the Hospital Saturday Fund but also extremely active in the public life of Birmingham.
At that first meeting, Gamgee suggested that, in addition to street collections, the workpeople of Birmingham be invited to work overtime on one Saturday afternoon in the year, especially to donate their earnings to theHospital Saturday Fund for distribution to the voluntary hospitals. Meetings were held in all the large factories and the campaign was
received with great enthusiasm. Saturday 15 March 1873 became the first Hospital Saturday. The collection amounted to £4,215 2s 5d. Expenses totalled £470 but a prominent Birmingham citizen, G F Muntz, gave a cheque for £500 which more than covered the expenses, doing so "as a mark of esteem for the noble effort and independent spirit shown by the working men". This meant that the whole of the £4,215 could be distributed to the medical charities of Birmingham. In an age when wages ranged from 15s to 20s per week, this result was truly remarkable and surpassed all expectations.
By 1879 the collection had dwindled and it was decided to replace them with a fixed weekly contribution of 1d. On 29 December 1891 the fund was incorporated as a limited non-profit company and was able to hold property, and in 1892 Tyn-y-coed, a stone house on a 33-acre (130,000 m[SUP]2[/SUP]) site near Llandudno in North Wales, opened as a convalescent home after its purchase price was donated by two Birmingham sisters, Henrietta and Sarah Stokes. Further homes were opened around the country.
In 1895 the BHSF started an ambulance service with four custom-designed cycle ambulances, based on a stretcher held between two bicycles. These were low cost devices which could be kept at police stations around the city and did not need assigned staff or horses.
The period after the 1960s saw a merger of similar funds around the country and later, in 2001, the merger of the Hull-based The Health Scheme (THS) with BHSF.
Today it STILL continues as a national non-profit health insurance service.
First up.....Dr Joseph Sampson Gamgee, MRCS, FRSE (17 April 1828, Livorno, Italy – 18 September 1886) was a surgeon at the Queen's Hospital (later the General Hospital) in Birmingham, England. He pioneered aseptic surgery (having once shared lodgings with Joseph Lister), and, in 1880 invented Gamgee Tissue, an absorbent cotton wool and gauze surgical dressing. He was known as Sampson Gamgee. He lived at 22 Broad Street.
He was the son of Joseph Gamgee, a veterinary surgeon and the sibling of Dr John Gamgee, inventor and Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dick Veterinary College, Edinburgh and Dr Arthur Gamgee, Fullerian Professor of Physiology and Comparative Anatomy at The Royal Institution of Great Britain, London. Sampson's son Dr Leonard Parker Gamgee was also a renowned surgeon of Birmingham and his nephew (son of his sister Fanny Gamgee) was Prof Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948).
In 1873 he founded the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund which raised money for various hospitals in Birmingham from overtime earnings given by workers on nominated Hospital Saturdays. It was the first such fund to raise money in this way for multiple hospitals. Sampson was also the first president of the Birmingham Medical Institute.
He gave his name (indirectly, via the tissue) to the hobbit Sam Gamgee in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. There is a blue plaque commemorating him on the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and a library is dedicated to him in the Birmingham Medical Institute.
Sunday Fund
Unlike the General Hospital, which was funded by concerts of the Birmingham Triennial Music Festivals, the Queen's Hospital had no regular large-scale funding. There was a "subscription of artisans" in 1847 and fetes in Aston Hall in 1856 and 1857. In 1859 the rector of St Martin in the Bull Ring started the Hospital Sunday Fund with church collections donated to Queen's Hospital and other hospitals.
As the out-patient facilities at Queen's were grossly inadequate Sampson Gamgee, one of its surgeons, instigated the construction of a new out-patients wing and suggested engaging the help of the working classes in raising funds. At a meeting in Birmingham Town Hall in January 1869, chaired by George Dawson, Gamgee's suggestion was put forward and accepted. An amount of £3,500 was raised in 1871. The foundation stone was laid on 4 December 1871. The original fund was then disbanded in 1872. The wing cost £10,000 and was formally opened on 7 November 1873. More about that here:
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/for...highlight=Triennial Music Festival#post466474
Saturday Fund
On 6 January 1873 Sampson Gamgee raised the suggestion that 'everyone should work overtime for the hospitals on a particular annual Saturday afternoon, to be called "Hospital Saturday"'. This new scheme called the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund
The first meeting of the Hospital Saturday Fund was held on 6 January 1873. John Skirrow Wright was in the chair, Sampson Gamgee became Honorary Secretary and Robert McRae the paid assistant. Ambrose Biggs, as Mayor, accepted the office of President. Of the Committee that was assembled at that first meeting, two members, Councillor William Cook (later to become Sir William Cook) and Lawley Parker (Gamgee's brother-in-law) were destined to be for many years not only a part of the Hospital Saturday Fund but also extremely active in the public life of Birmingham.
At that first meeting, Gamgee suggested that, in addition to street collections, the workpeople of Birmingham be invited to work overtime on one Saturday afternoon in the year, especially to donate their earnings to theHospital Saturday Fund for distribution to the voluntary hospitals. Meetings were held in all the large factories and the campaign was
received with great enthusiasm. Saturday 15 March 1873 became the first Hospital Saturday. The collection amounted to £4,215 2s 5d. Expenses totalled £470 but a prominent Birmingham citizen, G F Muntz, gave a cheque for £500 which more than covered the expenses, doing so "as a mark of esteem for the noble effort and independent spirit shown by the working men". This meant that the whole of the £4,215 could be distributed to the medical charities of Birmingham. In an age when wages ranged from 15s to 20s per week, this result was truly remarkable and surpassed all expectations.
By 1879 the collection had dwindled and it was decided to replace them with a fixed weekly contribution of 1d. On 29 December 1891 the fund was incorporated as a limited non-profit company and was able to hold property, and in 1892 Tyn-y-coed, a stone house on a 33-acre (130,000 m[SUP]2[/SUP]) site near Llandudno in North Wales, opened as a convalescent home after its purchase price was donated by two Birmingham sisters, Henrietta and Sarah Stokes. Further homes were opened around the country.
In 1895 the BHSF started an ambulance service with four custom-designed cycle ambulances, based on a stretcher held between two bicycles. These were low cost devices which could be kept at police stations around the city and did not need assigned staff or horses.
The period after the 1960s saw a merger of similar funds around the country and later, in 2001, the merger of the Hull-based The Health Scheme (THS) with BHSF.
Today it STILL continues as a national non-profit health insurance service.
