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Dudley Road Hospital -Peter Walker

Steward I think that the term "Union Work house" was left off death certs from the 1920's, and just the address where death occured i.e. 1 western road was substituted.
 
Was,t the Wukouse called Somerfield or something. I seem to remember my nan saying "Your not putting me their"
 
i was born in dudley rd hospital in 1972..from what ive been told the maternity block thats there now isnt the original one...it is an old derelict building almost on the front of the main car park..
if it is correct then it didnt look big enuff to be a maternity block..altho a lot of women had children at home...x
 
the workhouse was called Summerfield ..the only old building by the car park now is the old archway of tears
 
why was it called the archways of tears??..
a woman at the hospital told me it used to be the old maternity block,to be honest i havent a clue ...
what made me ask this woman was my other half had an appointment in the rheumatology dept..whic is in the maternity block lol....and i wondered if it had always been the maternity block..xx
 
heathy if you type in archway of tears in search box there are lots of threads relating to it and the hospitals
 
Hiya Healthy it was called the Archway of Tears cos that's where the family were split up when they went to the workhouse ..men one way ..women another and children another ..it must have been heartbreaking for them
 
Hiya Healthy
I grew up the next road down from the Archway and even in the late 60s/early 70s the older people in our area were scared stiff of going into the hospital ..by then it was Summerfield Infirmary (a modern day geriatric hospital)
 
I have the book Archway of Tears written by David Conroy.
It tells of one woman who entered there.
it is really good and should read it.

Carolann
 
Does anyone know if they used to register still births at Dudley Rd Hospital. I was born there in 1941. My Twin sister was still born. I cant find anything in Births and Deaths, only my own birth. I have no living relatives of that era to ask. and mother would never discuss it with me right up until she died.
 
Hello Pat,
My Aunt was a twin but as the other baby did not "draw breath", it was not registered. This was 1911, but the law changed and there is a Stillbirth Register at the General Records Office. (Not available at Birmingham Register Office.) If you send the details they will send an application form, and I think it costs around £9 now.

I hope this will help you, my Mum lost a child and didn't discuss him until very late in her life.

rosie.
 
On my grandmother's death certificate in 1928 it states that she died at 77 Dudley Road - I thought this was the address for Dudley Road Hospital. It couldn't have been her home address because her home address in Nechells/Duddeston was also included on the certificate. Please can anyone clarify.
Shirley
 
is there any way i can get my birth records from dudley road hospital i was born in 1944 and have no info on my birth ( my mother died when i was 9 ) di
 
My mother in law's parents had both died at dudley rd hospital in 1933 & 1935. she said once you go in there you come out in a box. She never wanted to up in that hospital because of that.
 
I can confirm Maggieuk's post. The Old buildings at the rear of Dudley Rd were referred to as the Summerfield Hospital when I was in the Ambulance Service. The Workhouse was a separate building. There is /was ? a link road from All Saint's into Dudley Rd when the site was developed, I often drove along it, thus the Medical /psychiatric /workhouse buildings once formed a joint facility.
Summerfield in my time was a Geriatric Block. The 'NEW' Summerfield unit, just opposite the Laundry, was a Day Centre and short stay Respite Unit. This became the Eye Hospital after the Ackers debacle, when the rearranged AHAs were trying to get Trust Status and were selling off lucrative City Centre sites including the Eye Hospital the 90s.
The Hearing Aid Clinic was 1 Western Rd, around the corner from the main Car Park Entrance to Dudley Rd. I'd look at a street map of the site from the 50s to get the exact lay out.
 
My mother, Dorothy Edith Vale (nee Billing) and her sister, Hilda Billings were nurses at Dudley Road Hospital in the 1930s. My mother ended her career as a sister.
 
Tby the Poor Law. A patient who is not an inmate of the older institution (the workhouse) must be seen by the workhouse Doctor and formally relegated by him to the Infirmary. The ambulance is then dispatched along the Infirmary Drive and stops under the archway of the receiving house, which stands on the boundary between the grounds of the two establishments.
"Patients ... after medical examination are allocated according to their ailments to the different wards in the main building. Persons suffering from smallpox, scarlet fever and similar complaints are not allowed to pass the receiving house, but are sent to the City Infections Hospital whilst those afflicted with contagious diseases such as erysipelas, ophthalmia and minor infectious diseases such as measles, are transferred at once to wards in a detached building in the Infirmary grounds"
The first Matron (or Lady Superintendent) at the new Infirmary was Anne Gibson who had trained in the Nightingale School. She was supported in post by a number of Nightingale Nurses and Probationers. Whilst working at the workhouse Infirmary Anne Gibson founded the Nurse Training School. She retired in 1912, and died in 1926.
The Central Poor Law Conference held on 13th February 1895 at Guildhall, London, was addressed by Anne Gibson speaking on the subject of Nursing in Workhouses and Workhouse Infirmaries. This was reported in the British Medical Journal.
The first Medical appointment was that of Visiting Surgeon Charles Jordon Lloyd, in addition to Resident Medical Staff. Unfortunately, he died in April 1913 at The Queen's Hospital in Birmingham, whilst working there. The visiting Physicians appointed were Dr. O. J. Kauffman, Dr. T. S. Short and Dr. C. W. Suckling.
The extension of Birmingham in 1911 led to the amalgamation of Birmingham, Aston and Kings Norton Unions into The Birmingham Union.
Dr. F. W. Ellis was appointed Chief Medical Officer to Dudley Road Infirmary and Western House on the 19th March 1913. The employment of Visiting Surgeons and Physicians was then abolished. The Hospital continued to grow from strength to strength, with a strong reputation. Within his first year of office he had analysed and reported in his 'Classification of the Indoor Poor' whereby the acute cases would be taken to Dudley Road Hospital, and the elderly and long term infirm would be taken to Western House. During the First World War, it was used as a Military Hospital, and then later transferred back to the Board of Guardians following the end of War. Frederick Ellis died in May 1939.
In 1925, Miss Olga Snowden was appointed Matron. She did much to improve the facilities and standards at Dudley Road Infirmary, founding the Olga Snowden School of Nursing, before her retirement in 1947.
The National Health Service Act 1946 was implemented in July 1948 with the formation of the Birmingham Regional Health Board. All the Hospitals and Infirmaries were divided into 27 Hospital groups, each group having its own Management Committee. No. 24 (Dudley Road) Hospital Group Management Committee was formed to administer the following Hospitals:
Dudley Road Hospital
Western Road Infirmary
Birmingham and Midland Eye Hospital
St Chad's Hospital
Birmingham and Midland Ear and Throat Hospital
The Skin Hospital
Marston Green Maternity Hospital
Heathfield Road Maternity Hospital
Burcot Grange, Blackwell
Taylor Memorial Home Romsley Hill Hospital
The Front block and Tower of the Hospital was demolished in 1964, and during this time the original foundation stone was lost. A large new out patient department was erected, with support services.

Sources:
Hutton, William: An History of Birmingham, Pearson and Rollason, 1783, reprinted EP Publishing, 1976
Kelly, Wm & Co: Post Office Directory of Birmingham with Staffordshire and Worcestershire, 1849, copied on CD by Midlands Historical Data, 2003
White, William: White's Directory of Birmingham . . . . the Hardware District, 1873, copied on CD by Midlands Historical Data, 2003
Kelly, Wm & Co: Kelly's Directory of Birmingham with its Suburbs and Smethwick, 1943, copied on CD by Midlands Historical Data, 2003
Dent, Robert K: Old and New Birmingham, Houghton & Hammond, 1878 -1880, reprinted EP Publishing, 1973
Gill, Conrad: History of Birmingham, Volume 1 - Manor and Borough to 1865, Oxford University Press, 1952
Briggs, Asa: History of Birmingham, Volume 2 - Borough and City 1865 - 1938, Oxford University Press, 1952
Upton, Chris: A History of Birmingham, Phillimore, 1993
he Hospital started life as the Birmingham Union Infirmary. It was erected in 1889, as an extension to the Workhouse in Western Road, from designs by W. H. Ward architect, and it had a corridor a quarter of a mile long linking nine pavilions, based on a model recommended by Florence Nightingale. It later became known as Dudley Road Infirmary, and then Dudley Road Hospital. It was recently once again renamed City Hospital, Dudley Road.
Extract from Birmingham Daily Post, 22nd April, 1890:
"There is only one way, officially speaking, into the infirmary, and that way lies through the Workhouse Gate, for it is only as an adjunct to the Workhouse that the infirmary is recognised
 
I was born in Dudley Road in January 1947, before there was an NHS service, does anyone know how much my parents would have paid for this service, we had to stay rather a long time as the weather was horrendous. Paul
 
hi paul thats a very interesting question...i wonder if anyone knows the answer to how much a hospital confinement would have cost then.

lyn
 
Hi mike
I cannot say just yet what the charges was but i have a case lf the people whom was sent
To the asylum whom would have payed for them around at lodge road there again it would have been part of the western road in those early years
Like the case of Henry Cundy Carter of 67 Lichfield Road Aston
Who has beenremanded twice previously on a charge of attempting suicide,
Was now committed to the asylum.
He jumped off Salford Bridge Gravely Hill on 3rd ,March 1900, but Landed on the foot path
Instead of in the water,
Alan,, Astonian,,,,,
 
paul stacey said:
I was born in Dudley Road in January 1947, before there was an NHS service, does anyone know how much my parents would have paid for this service, we had to stay rather a long time as the weather was horrendous. Paul
Click to expand...

My parents had four sons, all boys but I think all were born at home so I can't comment on the cost of hospital confinements but I know that they paid into the Birmingham Hospital Saturday Fund at something like 6d a week.
I don't recall them ever talking about the cost of hospital care, I know that my older brother Allen spent a long time in what was then known (to me at least) as Moseley Hall when he was around four years old, 1936ish, with double pneumonia.
 
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