Tag Archives: medical school

A Victorian hospital and Florence Nightingale

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OF CRIMEAN WAR fame, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) established a nursing school in what is now St Charles Hospital in North Kensington in 1884. In that time, the hospital near the northern end of Ladbroke Grove was called ‘the St Marylebone Union Infirmary’. It was so named because it was built to serve the poor of the parish of St Marylebone. It had to be put up outside the parish because there was no room available to build a hospital within it. This institution was opened in 1881 by the then Prince (future King Edward VII) and Princess of Wales. A very informative website, https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk, revealed that the hospital was:

“… three storeys high, with a central block and four pavilions.  It had accommodation for 744 patients … and 86 resident staff (the Infirmary also had 82 non-resident staff).”

In 1923, the hospital was renamed the ‘St Marylebone Hospital’ and the next year, the then Minister of Health and future Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) opened an extension, which had just been completed. By 1926, some wards had bedside wireless sets installed.

The hospital was given its current name when the London County Council took over its running in 1930. During WW2, wards on the top floors were closed, but the hospital suffered little damage from enemy bombing. After the war, St Charles served as a general hospital, but by 1998, there were very few beds for in-patients. Currently, the establishment is run by both the Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust and the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust. Now, it is known as St Charles’ Centre for Health and Wellbeing. Most of its patient care is out-patient and since the development of vaccines against covid19, it is also a ‘vaccination hub’.

The original edifices were designed by Henry Saxon Snell (1831-1904). In grey weather, the late Victorian buildings of St Charles with their brickwork and neo-gothic decorative features present a somewhat gloomy or even ominous appearance. In bright sunlight, although they do not seem particularly welcoming, they have a certain charm. The website, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol37, describes the architecture in more detail:

“The excellent plain brickwork, strong selfconfident design, and assured functional planning and detail make St. Charles Hospital a most significant building for its period. It occupies a rectangular site of three and a half acres near the north-west end of Ladbroke Grove … The buildings are planned on the pavilion principle, each block being, as far as compatible with facility of communication, isolated from the others. There are five parallel pavilions, the central administrative block being flanked on either side by two blocks of wards. The central block is surmounted by a massive tower, 182 feet in height, which forms a prominent landmark when viewed from the north and west. The chimney-shaft from the boilers below is carried up inside this tower, the upper part of which has a corbelled stage derived from northern Italian work of the Middle Ages. The tower contains a number of large tanks, providing storage for 25,000 gallons of water pumped from a well 500 feet in depth … The pavilions on either side of the tower are linked to each other by cast-iron galleries and canopied walks. A block of buildings situated at the entrance contained the residences of the medical officers, and over the spacious arched gateway in the centre there was a chapel 60 feet long by 30 feet wide, with a boarded wagon-roof of trefoil section. In a report on the infirmary written by Snell, he described the elaborate systems of heating and ventilation. Open fires heated coils of pipes containing water which then circulated, humidity also being contrived so that air would not be dried, a great advance for the time. The lighting was by gas, and fumes were carefully vented away. This ‘Thermhydric’ system, patented by the architect, included upright flues in the external walls, inlets being provided for fresh air which was warmed as it entered, and air was also admitted directly through the walls into skirtingboxes between the beds, while flues carried off the foul air and the products of gas combustion.”

Although it was clearly an advanced building for its time and it is not far from the much-visited Portobello Road, this hospital is unlikely to be on many visitors’ itineraries. However, lovers of Victorian architecture might enjoy seeing it even if they had no clinical requirement to do so.

A doctor from China

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THE CHINESE MEDICAL College in Hong Kong was founded in 1887 by the physician Sir James Cantlie (1851-1926), who was the inventor of what we now call ‘first aid’ and one of the founders of The London School of Tropical Medicine. One of his first students in Hong Kong was Sun Deming, better known as Sun Yat Sen (1866-1925). In 1878, Sun went to Honolulu to live with his elder brother. There, he was educated well in English at school. Aged 17, he returned to China. After desecrating a temple, he fled to Hong Kong, then under British rule, where he continued his education, joining the Chinese Medical College in 1887, having already studied a bit of western medicine elsewhere. In 1892, he graduated as a medical doctor. He became a friend of Sir James Cantlie.

In 1896, poor health forced Cantlie to return to London. That year, Sun came to England to visit Cantlie. Already out of favour with the Imperial Chinese government because of his revolutionary activities, private agents employed by the Chinese were sent to Liverpool where he landed to follow his movements. The reason for his conversion to political activism are summarised in an on-line article (www.newstatesman.com/international-content/2021/10/the-london-kidnapping-that-changed-china) as follows:

“The contrast between the colonial advancement he encountered abroad and the endemic poverty he knew from home convinced Sun that China needed revolutionary change. Rather than becoming a doctor, he helped engineer a rebellion in Canton (Guangzhou) in 1895. The failure of the uprising forced Sun to go on the run, which is why he ended up in Britain the following year.”

The first person that Sun visited after arriving in London was his old teacher Cantlie, who lived close to the Chinese embassy, which was, and still is, in Portland Place. On his way there, Sun was kidnapped and held captive in the embassy. He would have faced death had not he persuaded the embassy’s English housekeeper, a Mrs Howe, to smuggle a note to Dr Cantlie. An influential man, Cantlie managed to get Sun released, as was described in the above-mentioned article:

“In the end, it was an article about the kidnapping in the Globe that did the trick. On the following day, 23 October 1896, a large crowd formed outside the legation, noisily demanding Sun’s release. While diplomatic and legal wheels moved in the background, the ambassador and his staff realised they had to let their prisoner go. Sun emerged on to the street a national hero. While recovering at Cantlie’s house, he gave a long interview to the liberal-left Daily News, giving British readers their first insights into China’s embryonic revolutionary movement.”

Late last year, we were driving to Buntingford in Hertfordshire when we passed through the nearby village of Cottered. As the traffic was slow-moving, we managed to spot a memorial plaque attached to a house. We did not stop, but we saw enough of it to realise it had something to do with Sun Yat Sen. Very recently, we returned to Cottered to look at the plaque more carefully because we were intrigued that the Sun Yat Sen had a connection with a tiny Hertfordshire village. The plaque attached to a house called The Kennels reads as follows: “Sun Yat Sen “Father of Modern China” was a frequent visitor to this house while in exile from his home country.” Beneath Sun’s name there are three Chinese characters: “孫中山” which Google translates as ‘Sun Yat-sen’.

Curious to know more, we rang the doorbell of the house in Cottered and were greeted by a kindly gentleman, who explained that The Kennels was formerly owned by Sir James Cantlie. An article in an issue of the “The Comet”, a Hertfordshire newspaper, dated March 2017 (https://www.thecomet.net/news/sun-yat-sen-in-cottered-the-father-of-modern-china-5358282) revealed:

“His connection to the property, called The Kennels, comes from his life-long friendship with physician Sir James Cantlie, who owned the house, earlier taught him medicine in Hong Kong – and in 1896 saved him from imprisonment by agents of the Qing monarchy at the Chinese Legation in London.

Dr Sun visited the Cantlies in London and Cottered whenever he was in Britain … Sir James’ son Kenneth recalled one of the statesman’s visits to the village:

‘I must have been about five years old. It was sunset on a summer evening, and Dr Sun was walking up and down in the orchard. He was wearing a grey frock-coat and his homburg hat was tilted forward to keep the level sun out of his eyes. He had his hands behind his back and was pondering deeply. I was about to rush up to him in my usual impetuous way, when I stopped. ‘He is probably thinking great thoughts,’ I said to myself, and I went quietly away. I was not in the least afraid of Dr Sun, who was kindness itself – but my parents and my nurse may have put the idea into my head that here was a great man who must not be interrupted when he was thinking.”

Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth Cantlie (1899-1986) was about five years old in 1904, which was when Sun was living outside China.

The article continued:

“In 1912, after the success of the Xinhai Revolution – which established a Chinese republic, with Sun Yat-sen as its first provisional president – the doctor wrote with clear affection to the Cantlies. On paper headed ‘The President’s Office’, he wrote: “It makes me feel more grateful to you when from the present position I look back on my past of hardships and strenuous toil, and think of your kindnesses shown me all the while that I can never nor will forget.”

Both Sir James and his son Lt Col Kenneth are buried in the cemetery of Cottered’s parish church close to its southern door. According to “The Comet”:

“After Dr Cantlie died and was buried at St John’s Church in Cottered in 1926, the Chinese minister to Britain, Sao-Ke Alfred Sze, laid a memorial tablet at the church. Dr Cantlie’s grave in the churchyard is engraved with a Chinese translation of the gospel verse Matthew 5:7.

China Central Television visited the house in 2001, and again in 2011 as part of filming for a documentary series on the Xinhai Revolution.”

Sadly, I could find neither the tablet amongst the Cantlie family gravestones nor the engraving in Chinese, which is a translation of “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy”. Despite this, revisiting Cottered was well worthwhile, and it has for me sparked an increased interest in the birth of modern China. We hope to return to Cottered to see inside its church, which, judging by pictures posted online, looks fascinating.

A house, a spa, and Gray’s Anatomy

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I ENJOY FINDING links between seemingly diverse subjects. Recently, I discovered a connection between an old house in Hampstead in north London and the famous textbook “Gray’s Anatomy”.

On crossing East Heath Road, having just visited the Vale of Health, I saw a pair of wooden doors framed by a substantial brick archway. These doors are the entrance to the grounds of Foley House, which stands on a plot at the corner of Well Walk and East Heath Road. Even though it is partially hidden by the trees that grow within the railings that surround it, the upper windows of this three-storey brick building can be seen. From its architectural style, I guessed that it was pre-Victorian, maybe 18th century. Just south of the main building, there is an outhouse with a white painted wooden weatherboard façade. The top of the façade has six small apertures each above one of two shelves. Presumably, these are parts of a dovecote.

One source (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol9/pp15-33) states that the present Foley House was built between 1771 and 1773 by the Holborn glazier Edward Helling. Helling, whose dates I cannot find, had already died by 1781. This house (or an earlier one on the same site) was built for Mr John Duffield. who was:

“… the first Spa manager …” (https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1342099)

The spa was across Well Walk opposite Foley House.

In the late 17th century, Hampstead became well-known for its supposedly curative Chalybeate spring water, which is rich in iron salts. The spa was established on land that was leased in 1698 by Susannah Noel on behalf of her son Baptist, 3rd Earl of Gainsborough (1684-1714), who was lord of the manor, but a minor.  The lease:

“…granted 6 a[cres]. of Hampstead Heath, including the well of mineral water, to 14 trustees, who were admitted as copyholders at a rent of 5s. a year to use the income for the poor of Hampstead. The trustees leased all the property except the pond or springhead north-west of the mineral spring to John Duffield in 1701 for 21 years at £50 a year, on condition he spent £300 over 3 years improving it, and agreed for a second term for improvements worth £200.” (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol9/pp169-172).”

According to Thomas Barratt, author of the encyclopaedic “The Annals of Hampstead” (published 1912), one of these fourteen men was one Thomas Foley. The house might have been named in his memory.

Duffield was quick to develop the mineral spring into a spa. Christopher Wade, author of “For the poor of Hampstead, forever. 300 years of the Hampstead Wells Trust” published in 1998, quotes an advertisement for a concert that was to be held in the Hampstead Wells on the 18th of August 1701. By then, Duffield had built his Long Room, an edifice containing a ‘Pump Room’ and an ‘Assembly Room’. The latter measured about 72 by 30 feet and was tall and airy with large windows. It could accommodate 500 people The Long Room, which was demolished in 1882, was located where a house called Wellside (built 1892) stands in Well Walk today.

Wade wrote that Duffield:

“… had done well enough for himself to build ‘a goode brick house’ costing £1000. Some historians claim that that this became Foley House on East Heath Road, but the evidence is confused. (The house is not shown on a detailed map of 1762)”

The words “a goode brick house” are quoted from the manorial records of 1706. Barratt notes:

“Mr GW Potter is of the opinion from the description given in the record that this house was, in all or in part, that now called Foley House…”

Well, if the house that we see today was only built in 1771, it is not surprising that it was not shown on the map created in 1762. I looked at that map (https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol9/pp15-33) and Wade is right. There is no building marked where Foley House should be found. However, in “The Buildings of England. London 4: North”, the architectural historians Nikolaus Pevsner with Bridget Cherry write that Foley House was:

“… built in 1698 for J Duffield, the first spa manager …, but with mid-c18 three-bay front … Early c18 stables, weatherboarded.”

Pevsner and Cherry were describing the house that we saw, but its absence from the map is puzzling. I speculate the following. Duffield did have a house built in 1698 on the plot where the present Foley House stands. Maybe, it had been demolished by 1762, when the map was drawn, and then later replaced by the house built by Edward Helling, mentioned above. Alternatively, the map was incomplete or not 100% accurate.  

Several Victorian buildings neighbouring Foley House on Well Walk (currently numbers 21-27) bear the name ‘Foley Avenue’. Designed by Henry S Legg, these were built in 1881 on land that was once part of the grounds of Foley House.

And now for the link that I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. One of the people who lived in Foley House was the physiologist and surgeon Sir Benjamin Brodie (1783-1862). In an autobiographical note (“The works of Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie … with an autobiography”, published 1865), he wrote:

“In the year 1828 I engaged a house on Hampstead Heath, which at that time was a comparatively rural retreat. My family resided there during the summer and part of the autumnal season, and I generally was able to go thither to dinner, returning to my occupation in London in the morning.”

Brodie helped to acquire the building at the north end of Kinnerton Street in Belgravia, which became the medical school for St Georges Hospital (while it was located at Hyde Park Corner in what is now ‘The Lanesborough Hotel’).  One of the students who was taught by Brodie in Kinnerton Street was Henry Gray (1827-1861), author of one of the most famous medical textbooks, “Gray’s Anatomy”. Gray dedicated his masterpiece to his teacher and colleague Brodie.

Brodie used Foley House between 1828 and 1837, when his lease expired. Then, he bought a property in Surrey. As Gray was under ten years old when Brodie lived in Hampstead, he would not have been a visitor to Foley House.

Had I not written about Kinnerton Street and its association with “Gray’s Anatomy” shortly before spotting Foley House in Hampstead, there would have been hardly any chance of me being able to realise the connections between the house, Brodie, and his student, the famous anatomist.