This blog has been researched and written by Shelley Lanser, one of the volunteers on our maternity care project. Project volunteers are researching maternity care in Northumberland with particular focus on Castle Hills Maternity Home, Berwick, and Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. We are also researching in less detail some of the other Maternity Homes in the county. This blog tells the story of the evacuation of Newcastle Babies Hospital to Blagdon Hall during World War Two, an initiative of Lady Ursula Ridley. Lady Ridley was also involved with Mona Taylor Maternity Home, making an address at the opening in 1943.

The project is supported by the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Bright Charity and the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust. We will be posting more blog content from the project over the coming months. 

The Newcastle Babies Hospital has an interesting history, beginning first as a daycare facility for children whose mothers were working in munitions factories during World War I. It was located in a house at 33 West Parade, on the corner of Westmorland Road, in the west end of Newcastle. It later became a place for aiding sick children, many malnourished, and teaching “Mother Craft” which included teaching mothers how to breast feed. Eventually it was a hospital where doctors performed surgery and where residential facilities were provided for the mothers so they could assist in caring for their sick child; two more houses were acquired to accommodate this need. The hospital was amalgamated into the Royal Victoria Infirmary in 1944.

The medical professional whose name is most prominent in connection with the Babies Hospital is Dr. James Spence, eventually Professor Sir James Spence. Dr. James Calvert Spence held the first Chair of Child Health, which made him the first Professor of Paediatrics in England. He was also a founding member of the British Paediatric Association. His involvement with the Newcastle Babies Hospital provided the foundation for his practice of social paediatrics.  In the last Annual Report of the hospital, in 1945, he reiterated his view that care of children should always include a Paediatrician working along with surgeons and other specialists; also that the mother should be admitted to hospital along with the child. [1]

Ursula Ridley, Viscountess Ridley OBE, wife of Matthew White Ridley, 3^rd Viscount Ridley, shared a long history with the Newcastle Babies Hospital. Lady Ridley’s name first appeared in the Annual Report in 1925 as a vice-president and she was asked to join the Hospital House Committee in 1925, after a garden fete she had organised had raised £100. She was elected Chairman in 1930.

Due to the location of the hospital being so close to the Elswick Works of Vickers Armstrong, in 1939 the threat of World War II caused the Committee to consider moving the hospital to another location.  Lady Ridley offered use of a wing at Blagdon Hall. In 1820, a former Lady Ridley had built a 10-bedroomed nursery wing at Blagdon to house her ten children. This wing also had a large nursery at the end of the corridor.  The Ministry of Health agreed this was a suitable location but told them not to move until receiving a telegram instructing them to evacuate. The telegram never arrived and the Committee took the decision to move on the 1^st of September, 1939. An out-patient facility remained at West Parade. In 1943, this out-patient facility became part of the Children’s Clinic at the Royal Victoria Infirmary and 33 West Parade reverted to its original function as a day nursery.

The day before the move to Blagdon Hall, estate workmen removed furniture and members of Stannington WI “rallied in force” to scrub the floors and lay lino. On moving day all the cots and beds were brought to Blagdon, followed by nurses and babies transported in the cars of Committee members. Later that day, a Mr. Cowell arrived with a baby requiring immediate surgery for pyloric stenosis. The surgery was performed on a bath rack across a bath with instruments Lady Ridley sterilized in a kettle on the kitchen fire. The patient recovered. Soon after, most of the trained nursing staff had been called up for service and Lady Ridley found herself assisting in an operation performed by Mr. Wardill. The Matron gave encouragement and instructed her to “splash a lot” when she scrubbed up. After this, Lady Ridley had full charge of the theatre and assisted at most all of the operations.

There was no resident House Physician at Blagdon Hall, but an on call rota of doctors made the 20 mile return journey on a weekly basis. One particularly heavy snow storm required digging out the car to go for provisions and found Dr. Spence putting on gum boots to walk to Blagdon. The handicaps of distance, weather and war were somewhat offset by the benefits to the children of the gardens at Blagdon. Mixing the different age groups to create a family atmosphere also aided in the children’s psychological improvement. During the five years the hospital was at Blagdon and in a time before antibiotics, 48 surgeries were performed for pyloric stenosis, with one death; and 44 operations for cleft palate and hare lip, with one death, in an operating theatre that was less than ideal.

Over time, the hospital premises spread from its original wing, ending up with 36 rooms for children and eight single rooms for mothers; over 300 mothers stayed at Blagdon between 1939 and 1944. It had been noted that mothers who were involved with the care of their sick child developed a new competence and confidence compared to mothers who weren’t able to leave their other family commitments to stay at the hospital. This involvement of mothers was a feature of children’s hospital care that was to continue after the hospital became part of the Royal Victoria Infirmary.

On the evening of 22 August 1944, a fire broke out in the hospital wing at Blagdon Hall, necessitating removal of all the children. Dr Spence happened to be on site and he was aided by two R.A.F. men who saw the smoke from the Great North Road and came to help. The children were sent to other hospitals the next day but a few months later the Blagdon hospital was able to re-open with places for 12-14 long stay cases aged between one and seven years. However, in October 1943, the Sister in charge, Sister McFarland, had to retire due to ill health. A Sister Woodward came out most days from the Royal Victoria Infirmary, but after she also retired it was no longer practical to continue the unit. The Newcastle Babies Hospital at Blagdon was formally amalgamated into the Royal Victoria Infirmary in 1944.

Nearly all the information in this post comes from a book written by Lady Ursula Ridley, The Babies Hospital². This book was privately printed and presented to Lady Ridley by the Board of Governors of the United Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals in 1956, when Lady Ridley was still Chairman of the Babies Hospital House Committee. This presentation was on the occasion of a visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to the Babies Hospital on October 31 of that year.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Calvert_Spence, accessed 27 June 2023.

2. Ridley, Ursula, The Babies Hospital, Andrew Reid and Company, Strawberry House, Newcastle, 1956.  ZRI 85 [NRO 12793]

Image Ref: ZRI 85

A common belief is that working in the archives is a cosy job where all you do is sit down and help people with their family history. This isn’t exactly true….. 

I love going out in a van to collect documents and over the years I have visited some interesting places. I had only worked for Northumberland Archives for a couple of weeks when I was taken out in a van to collect records from the Dickson, Archer & Thorp offices in Alnwick. It was liking stepping into a Dickens novel and you could almost imagine Scrooge sitting amongst all the parchments, ledgers and scrolled documents. I can still recall the smell of the building and remember it being extremely heavy work as we carried material from the upstairs rooms down to the van outside. My body ached for days afterwards but despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and was eager to go out again. 

Going to Prudhoe hospital in 2016 to assess a large collection of documents and plans was also extremely interesting. The hospital had closed so the building was bitterly cold and slightly eerie with its long corridors and rusty old signs. Some of the highlights of the day involved discovering a beautiful staircase, luxurious wallpaper and stained glass windows. The following year, staff spent a few days in the cellar of the Land Factor building in Haltwhistle where we appraised records which were eventually deposited at Woodhorn. It was extremely cramped, hot and dirty down there! It was also very hard physical work but above ground there were some lovely features in the building including lights and glass fire extinguishers.

Alongside all the outreach work we do with schools and community groups, we also work with other agencies such as the media, coroner’s office, police and law courts. We are regularly contacted by researchers who work for tv production companies as they want to use copies of our documents in their programmes. This can often be at very short notice which has an impact on staff as documents need to be scanned and permission may need to be obtained from the depositor if we don’t own the collection. Royalty fees also need to be paid when material is used on television or in a film. Last week we had a request from a film company in India who wanted to use one of our images in a scene in a Hindi film.

One of the departments we have regular contact with is the coroner’s office. Most coroners’ records are closed to public inspection for 75 years. However, if a request is made by a person to view records within the closed period, a request needs to be made to the coroner’s office.

When we are contacted by the police they are often looking into historic cases and need to consult records that we hold. If they need to visit us, they view the records in a closed room away from our Study Centre. The same procedure is followed for staff from the law courts when they come to look at historic court records. Working with these agencies is fascinating but I have to admit, I still love going out in a van!