Charitable Hospitals
Lecturer: Lynsey Cullen
This lecture explores the growth of charitable (voluntary) hospitals in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain, situating them within the broader medical marketplace and evolving hospital system. It examines institutional expansion, treatment practices, and the identity of typical charitable hospital patients. The session also considers the role of medical social workers (Almoners) in coordinating charitable hospital aftercare, highlighting the intersection of philanthropy, medicine, and social welfare.
Discussion/Essay Questions:
- What factors accounted for the growth of the charitable hospital system?
- How much agency and choice did the sick poor have over where they sought medical treatment?
- How did hospital medicine change the doctor-patient relationship?
Required Reading:
L. Granshaw, ‘The rise of the modern hospital in Britain’, in A. Wear (Ed.), Medicine in Society: Historical Essays, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1992), pp. 197-218
K. Waddington, ‘Chapter 8: Hospitals’, in K. Waddington, An introduction to the social history of medicine: Europe since 1500 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 144-165
Further Reading:
S. Cherry, ‘Before the National Health Service: financing the voluntary hospitals, 1900-1939’, Economic History Review, Vol. L, No. 2, (1997), pp. 305-326
L. Cullen, ‘The First Lady Almoner: The Appointment, Position and Findings of Miss Mary Stewart at the Royal Free Hospital 1895-99’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 64, 4, (2013) 551-582
M. E. Fissell, ‘The disappearance of the patient’s narrative and the invention of hospital medicine’, in R. French and A. Wear (Eds.) British Medicine in an Age of Reform, (Routledge, London, 1991), pp. 92 – 109 – not in the library
M. Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, Translated from French by A. M. Sheridan, (Tavistock Publications, London, 1973)
L. Granshaw and R. Porter (Eds.), The Hospital in History, (Routledge, London and New York, 1989)
L. Granshaw, ‘Fame and fortune by means of bricks and mortar’: the medical profession and specialist hospitals in Britain, 1800-1948’, in L. Granshaw and R. Porter (Eds.), The Hospital in History, (Routledge, London and New York, 1989) pp. 199-220
J. D. Howell, ‘Hospitals’, in R. Cooter and J. Pickstone (Eds.), Companion to Medicine in the Twentieth Century, (Routledge, London and New York, 2003), pp. 503-518
J. Mohan, ‘‘Caprice of charity’ Geographical variations in the finances of British voluntary hospitals before the NHS’, in M. Gorsky and S. Sheard (Eds.), Financing Medicine: The British experience since 1750, (Routledge, Abingdon, 2006), pp. 77-92
J. Mohan and M. Gorsky, Don’t Look Back? Voluntary and Charitable Finance of Hospitals in Britain Past and Present, (Office of Health Economics and Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, London, July 2001)
R. Porter, ‘Hospitals and Surgery’ in R. Porter (Ed.) The Cambridge History of Medicine, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006), pp. 176- 210
F. K. Prochaska, Philanthropy and the Hospitals of London: The King’s Fund 1897-1990, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992)
J. Reinarz, ‘Charitable bodies: The funding of Birmingham’s voluntary hospitals in the nineteenth century’, in M. Gorsky and S. Sheard (Eds.), Financing Medicine: The British experience since 1750, (Routledge, Abingdon, 2006), pp. 40-58
G. B. Risse, ‘Hospital History: New Sources and Methods’, in R. Porter and A. Wear (Eds.), Problems and Methods in the History of Medicine, (Croom Helm, New York, 1987), pp. 175-204
G. B. Risse, Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals, (Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1999)