Poplar Hospital was a medical facility opened in
East India Dock Road
East India Dock Road is a major arterial route from Limehouse to Canning Town in London. The road takes its name from the former East India Docks in the Port of London, and partly serves as the high street of Poplar. To the west it becomes Co ...
in London, England, in 1855. It was opened under the patronage of
Samuel Gurney, MP, to treat people who had suffered injuries in the docks. The premises which were leased for the hospital were originally those of the East India Dock Tavern and then subsequently the Custom House.
Under
Sydney Holland's chairmanship the hospital was able to expand considerably in the late nineteenth century. Holland was well known for his successful fundraising, for which he earned the nickname 'Prince of Beggars'. In a four-year period Holland raised sufficient funds to enlarge the hospital from 36 to over 100 beds, improved the nursing care, and the hospital's reputation.
The hospital was repeatedly expanded to cater for more patients, only being closed in 1975.
It was demolished in 1982.
From the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century, the British
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
(EIC) maintained a hospital in the area known as Poplar Hospital. The hospital had been established in March 1628 as an almshouse for its mariners.
Notable staff
* Emma Pilcher (abt 1845– ), Matron 1883 – until about 1891. She had previously trained at St Thomas's Hospital and Inverness. Pilcher was the first of three London Hospital nurses to work as Matron at Poplar in succession for over a forty-year period.
[Rogers, Sarah (2022). 'A Maker of Matrons’? A study of Eva Lückes’s influence on a generation of nurse leaders:1880–1919' (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Huddersfield, April 2022)]
* Gertrude Vacher (abt 1864– ), Matron 1891–1895.
Vacher trained at The London Hospital as both a paying and ordinary probationer between 1885 and 1887. Whilst matron at Poplar she was seriously ill with pneumonia, and resigned following her recovery. Sydney Holland purchased a grave plot at Brompton Cemetery, and organised death announcements.
* Selina Elizabeth Bland (1855–1931), Matron 1895–1926.
Bland trained at
The London Hospital
The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and spe ...
under
Eva Luckes
Eva Charlotte Ellis Luckes (8 July 1854 – 16 February 1919) was Matron of The London Hospital from 1880 to 1919.
Early life
Eva Abigail Charlotte Ellis Luckes (she herself spelled her name Lückes with the umlaut)
was born in Exeter, Devo ...
from 1895 to 1897. Bland's application was supported by the House Committee at The London, and Sydney Holland, The Poplar Hospital Chairman, was very pleased with other London Hospital trained nurses who had moved to nurse at Poplar.
[Matron’s Annual Letter, No.3; Matron’s Annual Letter to Nurses, 1894–1916; RLHLH/N/7/2, No.3, June 1896, 8; Barts Health NHS Trust Archives and Museums, London]
Citations and references
Citations
References
*Makepeace, Margaret (2010) ''The East India Company's London Workers: Management of the Warehouse Labourers, 1800–1858''. (Boydell & Brewer).
{{Coord, 51, 30, 42.36, N, 0, 0, 25.38, W, display=title
Defunct hospitals in London
Poplar, London
Buildings and structures demolished in 1982
Demolished buildings and structures in London