Tooting Military Hospital Records

Two volumes labelled "Histology Book" from Tooting Military Hospital. These are records of patients, the first volume begins on 1 Jan 1918 and is roughly chronological; additional notes for some patients continue until 1919. The second volume appears to be a summary of the records in volume 1, arranged alphabetically. The first book includes an index. Information recorded is: patient name, ward number, age, description and date of wound, subsequent treatment and clinical observations. Descriptions of the injury and treatment can be quite detailed and several include simple diagrams. Predominantly manuscript with a few typescript folios pasted in.

In 1897 the former St Joseph's Roman Catholic College was taken over by the Wandsworth Board of Guardians to provide extra workhouse accommodation. The site, which contained Hill House (the original manor house), had originally been bought by St Joseph's Teaching Brotherhood. They built the college, which opened as a Roman Catholic school in 1887. However, the upkeep proved too expensive and the school moved to Beulah Hill in 1895. The three storey College building was renamed the Tooting Home for the Aged and Infirm.

During WW1 the Home was taken over by the War Office and became the Church Lane Military Hospital (also known as the Tooting Military Hospital). It had 712 beds for enlisted servicemen. After the war the Ministry of Pensions used it as a neurological hospital for shell-shocked and neurasthenic ex-servicemen until 1923. The buildings then became empty and derelict. In 1930 the LCC bought the site and it reopened in 1931 as St Benedict's Hospital. The hospital joined the NHS in 1948 and following reorganisation of the NHS in 1974, the hospital came under the control of the Wandsworth and East Merton (Teaching) District Health Authority, part of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority. It closed in 1981 and housing has now been built on the site.

Open

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

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