The South London Hospital for Women and Children was a general hospital treating women and children on

Clapham Common Clapham Common is a large triangular urban park in Clapham, south London, England. Originally common land for the parishes of Battersea and Clapham, it was converted to parkland under the terms of the Metropolitan Commons Act 1878. It is of g ...

in London, UK. It was also known as the South London Hospital for Women and the South London Women's Hospital. Founded by

Eleanor Davies-Colley Eleanor Davies-Colley FRCS (21 August 1874; Petworth, Sussex – 10 December 1934; London) was a British surgeon. Among the earliest women in the UK to pursue a career in surgery, at that time an almost entirely male-dominated profession, she ...

and

Maud Chadburn Maud Mary Chadburn (9 March 1868 – 24 April 1957), was one of the earliest women in the United Kingdom to pursue a career as a surgeon. She also co-founded the South London Hospital for Women and Children in 1912 with fellow surgeon Ele ...

in 1912, it always employed an all-woman staff. It closed in 1984.

Foundation

Eleanor Davies-Colley and Maud Chadburn, two surgeons at the

New Hospital for Women The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital and its predecessor organisations provided health care to women in central London from the mid-Victorian era. It was named after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, one of Britain's first female physi ...

(later the

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital and its predecessor organisations provided health care to women in central London from the mid-Victorian era. It was named after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, one of Britain's first female phys ...

, now the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital), began raising funds in 1911 for a new South London general hospital for women and children, with the aim of employing an all-woman medical staff. The New Hospital (the first hospital to be run along these lines) was increasingly unable to cope with the demand for its services, and many women were being turned away untreated. At that time, such hospitals served the dual purpose of improving medical care for women and enhancing career prospects for female medical practitioners, as many hospitals refused to employ women.Elston MA. 'Run by Women, (Mainly) for Women: Medical Women's Hospitals in Britain, 1866–1948' in ''Clio Medica/The Wellcome Series in the History of Medicine'', Vol. 61, 'Women and Modern Medicine' (Conrad L, Hardy A, eds), pp. 73–107(35), Rodolpi
/ref> Since the foundation of the New Hospital in 1872, the rationale for women-only hospitals had evolved from protecting feminine modesty to providing treatment choices for women, reflecting the growth of

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

during this period. Aided by Davies-Colley's cousin Harriet Weaver, publisher of ''The Freewoman'', and other feminists, enough money was raised to open an outpatients' department in

Newington Causeway __NOTOC__ Newington Causeway is a road in Southwark, London, between the Elephant and Castle and Borough High Street. Elephant & Castle Underground station is at the southern end. It follows the route of the old Roman road Stane Street. In 19 ...

in 1912.Elston MA (2004) 'Colley, Eleanor Davies- (1874–1934)', ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press
(accessed 20 August 2007) A caustic letter to ''The Times'' from a medical practitioner who declared the project to be unnecessary, as any demand for women to treat women was an artificial result of women forcing themselves into medicine, seems to have sparked the major donation: £53,000 for building plus a £40,000 endowment. With such generous funding, progress was swift: a purpose-built eighty-bed hospital on

, designed by architect ME Collins, was opened by Queen Mary on 4 July 1916.Derelict London: Hospitals
(accessed 18 August 2007) Staffed entirely by women, it was the ninth general women's hospital in Britain to be run in this way, and the largest, thanks to the size of its endowment. Weaver became their first Honorary Secretary. The South London Hospital included not only charity wards where patients paid only what they could afford, but also private rooms for which patients paid a set fee of 1–3 guineas per week. This reflected a trend in the later wave of women's hospitals (founded after the 1890s) towards treating a broader range of women, including the growing middle classes. The terms of the endowment strictly required that the hospital should employ only female doctors and admit only women, with the exception of children under seven. In fact, according to Chadburn's unpublished memoirs, the hospital's first inpatient only just qualified, being a boy of almost seven who had been injured in an accident involving a laundry van (cited by Elston).

Interwar years and the Second World War

After the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the hospital expanded, with new departments being added for dermatology (1922) and urology (1924). The buildings were enlarged when the imposing

Wrenaissance Edwardian architecture is a Baroque Revival architecture, Neo-Baroque architectural style that was popular in the British Empire during the Edwardian era (1901–1910). Architecture up to the year 1914 may also be included in this style. Descripti ...

Baroque style frontage building (designed by leading 20th-century architect Sir Edwin Cooper – architect of the Port of London HQ opposite the Tower of London and another grand hospital building in Greenwich which is of a very similar style) was opened in 1929. Only of this building was completed leaving the southern end pavilion missing; an unsightly gap for the rest of the century. Further extensions were completed in the 1950s. By the 1930s, however, the need for wholly female-staffed hospitals to provide positions for women had reduced greatly, as equality of career opportunities for women in mainstream, mixed-staffed hospitals started to emerge, and the future of such hospitals began to be called into question. Although several women-only hospitals began to admit men during the 1930s, the South London Hospital's fundraising was sufficiently effective to allow it retain its original staffing policy. The terms of its founding donation were so strict that Chadburn claimed an Act of Parliament had been required for male soldiers to be treated during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

as cited by Elston.

National Health Service and closure

When the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

(NHS) took over hospital provision in 1948, hospital care became free at point of use and remaining restrictions on hospital appointments by gender in mainstream hospitals were formally removed. These changes obviously had an enormous impact on the need both for women-only hospitals and for the provision of charitable care. The South London Hospital, like most other women-only hospitals, was absorbed into the NHS. Although the NHS legislation did include some provision for maintaining the objects of the original institutions, where practical, the new regionally based administration made this problematic. Many women-only hospitals were closed, merged with other mixed hospitals, or required to admit male staff. The South London Hospital escaped these fates for more than three decades. In 1982, 3674 and 1953 new outpatients, respectively, attended the departments of gynaecological and genitourinary medicine.Boyd J, Hicks E, Louden M. (1984) South London Hospital for Women ''Br Med J'' 288: 74
(accessed 21 August 2007) The women-only staffing policy was retained until the hospital's closure, when it was one of the very few general hospital in Britain to remain wholly staffed by women. It fostered what three employees described in 1984 as 'that unique liaison and co-operation that is so striking a feature of the hospital.' The all-women wards served by an entirely female nursing and consultant staff also seem to have been popular with the public; a petition protesting against closure was signed by 60,000 people, and the hospital building was occupied for nine months by protesters.Indymedia: Women from San Francisco and London Join Women in Ireland Against War, Occupation, Deportation...
(accessed 21 August 2007) The South London Hospital was closed in 1984, deemed uneconomic by Wandsworth

Area Health Authority Area health authorities were 90 bodies responsible for administering the National Health Service, established in England by the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 in 1974. Each covered a geographical population which matched a Local Go ...

, a claim disputed by three employees in a letter to the ''British Medical Journal''. A "work in" was organised in 1984 and the buildings were occupied by protestors until 27 March 1985.

Redevelopment

The original hospital building was by leading architect Sir Edwin Cooper, and has been described as a 'most impressive landmark building and a good example of neo-classical 1920s architecture'.Bird E. (1998) 'Appeal decision: demolition of unlisted historic buildings in a conservation area rejected' ''Context'' 59: 21
(accessed 21 August 2007) In 1998

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

attempted to win permission to demolish the hospital to the ground and replace it with a tower block of flats and a new store but this was strongly contested by Lambeth Council, local residents and amenity groups at a major public inquiry. Lambeth and the Clapham residents won their fight and Tesco agreed to retain Cooper's frontage of 1929. In 2004 the Cooper building was refurbished and the missing pavilion was finally completed, 75 years after the original building was opened. This, and the removal of the awkward ambulance entrance ramp and clumsy porch, which was replaced by an elegant flight of steps with classical balustrade designed by leading conservation architect Giles Quarme, improved the appearance of this landmark. English Heritage refused to list the building so Lambeth was unable to save the interiors including an Elizabethan style wooden staircase, fine panelled Board Room and the Outpatients waiting hall with chequer-board floor and barrel vaulted ceiling which were all destroyed. The frontage block was converted into flats above a Tesco supermarket and the ward blocks behind were all demolished to build a new block of flats with large car park for Tesco.South London Hospital for Women Clapham Common
(accessed 21 August 2007)

References

External links