The original caption may contain language which is historic and which may no longer be considered appropriate. It has been retained in the record in the interest of historical accuracy.
The caption on the reverse of the photograph reads: “Salvation Army Mothers’ Hospital. Picture shows mothers with their babies waiting to see the lady doctor at the babies’ clinic.”
The Salvation Army opened a maternity home in 1884 in Hackney, and dedicated this home to unmarried mothers in 1888. Maternity hospital facilities were combined with a ‘home of refuge’, and after expanding and acquiring new properties throughout the early 20th century, the Mothers’ Hospital moved to a new site in Lower Clapton Road, opened in 1913. The school at the Mothers’ Hospital trained its first midwife in 1889 and more than 250 midwives graduated from the training school in its first 18 years. During and after the First World War, the Mothers’ Hospital also admitted married mothers – recognising the hardship faced by married women whose husbands were in the Army or Navy, or had been killed in action. A new nurses’ home and operating theatre were opened in 1921, and in the 1930s an outpatients’ department and new isolation block were built. The number of births in the Mothers’ Hospital had risen 2,000 each year by the 1930s. During the Second World War patients and students of the training school were evacuated to country estates requisitioned by the Ministry of Health. However, patients were allowed to remain in London if they wished; an air raid shelter was completed in 1940 to satisfy the Ministry’s conditions. It was at the Mothers’ Hospital that the practice of encouraging patients to become mobile soon after delivery was first introduced, partly to enable patients to transfer to the air raid shelter each evening. Considerable medical benefits were noted which challenged the practice that patients should remain in bed for 10 days following deliver. The Mothers’ Hospital was hit by a bomb in 1940: two ward blocks were destroyed but no casualties were reported. See also MED01/01/0667-0672 and MED01/01/0674-0676, and MED01/02/0019. High-resolution copies of this image are available for free for non-commercial use. Please Enquire to place an order.
This is part of the Series: MED01/01 Series of prints; within the Collection: MED01 Topical Press Agency Medical Collection
Source: Historic England Archive
Photographer: Topical Press Agency Limited
Photographer: Harrison, Norman Kingsley
Maternity Hospital, Women's History, Health And Welfare
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