In 2005 an interesting and useful book was published.
Edited by Barbara Applin, it is called ‘Taking the Pulse of Basingstoke’.
As you might have guessed from the title, this book tells the history of medical care in Basingstoke, both before the NHS came into being on July 5, 1948, and afterwards.
As we wait to see if our promised new hospital does arrive before 2030 and the NHS creaks in so many places, it’s interesting to think about how things used to be.
From the early years of the 20th century until 1948, healthcare was not free.
From 1911, the working man could join ‘The Panel’ paying for health care through a deduction from his wage.
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He could then register with a doctor and had then joined that doctor’s ‘panel’.
He could see a doctor, but medicines had to be paid for and cover did not extend to his family.
Then with the NHS, came this leaflet sent to everyone in 1948: It will provide you with all medical, dental and nursing care. Everyone — rich or poor, man, woman or child — can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items. There are no insurance qualifications. But it is not a “charity”. You are all paying for it, mainly as tax payers, and it will relieve your money worries in time of illness.
[Central Office of Information, for the Ministry of Health].
Basingstoke historically had doctors or physicians – Dr John Lyford, b.1734 called himself a ‘man-midwife’ and was the Austen family’s doctor at Steventon.
It is likely that he lived in Cross Street, as his father had a property on the north side.
There was also Dr Edward Covey, b.1806, who lived in The Shrubbery in Cliddesden Road.
Doctors had time to be councillors and often mayors as well and of course, had to keep a horse if not a carriage otherwise they would always be too late! By the time a servant had been despatched from the scene of an illness or accident and ridden into Basingstoke, roused the doctor who had then saddled up and ridden back, the patient wouldn’t meet the ‘golden hour’ of today.
When Jane Austen’s friend Anne Lefroy was thrown from her horse coming out of Overton on her way home to Ashe Rectory, it was Dr Charles Lyford who attended her, but a severe concussion led to her death on 16 December 1804.
Another riding accident happened to Mrs Bradshaw from Audleys Wood, who was taking an afternoon ride in 1904.
Her horse stumbled and she was partly thrown. She was dragged along by her horse for some way and the landlord of the nearby Hatch Inn helped carry her into the inn.
Dr Webb from Basingstoke was sent for and returned in his brougham (that’s stylish) but was too late to save the poor lady.
A detailed account was recorded in the Hants and Berks Gazette.
Dr Webb had the misfortune to be the local medical officer a year later, when a botched drainage job led to raw sewage entering the water supply followed by an outbreak of typhoid fever in the town.
Townspeople were ordered to boil all their water.
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Among the fatalities was John Mares’ only son, who has a memorial in the United Reformed Church.
The Shrubbery Maternity Home in Cliddesden Road was purchased from the Burberry family in 1946 – it had been the home of Thomas Newman Burberry and his wife, Mary-Ann - (he was the son of the founder of the company).
The campaign for a maternity home was led by Cllr Mrs Edith Weston and the council purchased the house for £21,000 in 1944.
This was before the NHS and women paid what they could afford.
However, even this would have been too much for some families and there were women in the town – midwives – who would offer accommodation to a woman at the time of her delivery to give her privacy to give birth and to prevent her getting straight out of bed and doing the week’s washing.
Other women gave birth at home, attended by a family member or midwife.
The Shrubbery closed in 1974 when the ‘mini’ opened as the first phase of the new hospital, surviving as The Sherborne building and with the delightful sculpture which came from The Shrubbery.
Before the new hospital was built, the townspeople relied on a very small cottage hospital on the corner of Hackwood Road and Southern Road.
Anything of a serious nature was treated at Winchester Hospital.
The money for this hospital was raised by public subscription following a meeting in 1867 and the hospital finally opened in 1879.
One donor was Thomas Pain b. 1823 who lived at Audleys Wood.
He was a Director of Tattersall’s, the well-known horse auctioneers.
He died in 1885, and a ward was named ‘Audleys’ in recognition, rather than using his surname. I wonder why?
The architect of Hackwood Road Hospital was Matthew Wyatt, a perhaps lowly member of that great family of architects.
He was also the architect of The Bolton Arch at Crabtree.
He gave his work free of charge and a ward was named for him.
In 1887 to celebrate Victoria’s Jubilee a new ward was named for the Queen.
The May Wing was donated by brewer John May in 1897.
From 1937 the town’s popular carnival was held to raise funds for the hospital.
Infectious disease was treated by isolating the patient away from the town.
The last of the town’s isolation hospitals was on the Kingsclere Road close to where the Park Prewett line crossed the road.
Later it was known as Bridge House and became a nurses’ home.
As late as the 1930s children were nursed here during a scarlet fever epidemic.
Their mothers could wave to them from outside the building.
In 2014, the foundation stone was in a builder’s yard at Rooksdown.
A resident contacted Basingstoke Heritage Society and we persuaded the then museum service to take it and it is now in Milestones Museum, recording a time of diseases which vaccination has virtually eradicated.
Maybe not exactly the ‘good old days’.
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