General

This blog has been researched and written by Dee Love, 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. The blog is based on wider research exploring maternity provision in Northumberland.

As late as October 1972 discussions were still ongoing about the future of the Thomas Knight Memorial Hospital. The House Committee had been told no proposals had been made for replacing the hospital but it’s functions may change in the light of circumstances.

The Committee were adamant that the Beulah House Maternity Hospital should continue to function until the new and extended maternity hospital that was promised for Blyth was in place, then there would be opportunities for all interested parties to have time to express their views re any possible changes for the use or closure of any hospital within the group.

It would appear that, according to figures released by the Hospital Management Board, there was a decline in the number of patients at Beulah House. This may have been due to the G.P.s referring patients to the new maternity unit in Ashington.

Beulah House Maternity Hospital

Service usage 1972                     July   August  September 

 Admissions                                    24         23          23

 Outpatients                                      0         14             3

 Average no. of patients per day     3.6       4.6         2.9

Service Usage October 1973   

Admissions                                        17

Average no of patients per day         3.5

Questions were asked in the House of Commons on 4 April 1973 about hospital provision in Blyth by Eddie Milne the M.P. for Blyth. It was obviously a topic which was very much on the minds of Blyth’s residents.

Eddie Milne: What would Secretary of State for Social Services, Keith Josephs’ policy be towards G.P. run Cottage Hospitals to supplement coverage of patients provided by District General Hospitals?

Keith Josephs:  A decision has been made that this would happen – that Community Hospitals would be complementary to District Hospitals.

They would provide supplementary care which didn’t need the highly specialized care facilities of a District Hospital.

Eddie Milne: Would they provide Maternity Care or would that be centred on the District Hospitals?

Keith Josephs:  Community Hospitals will cater for a variety of patients and will differ from the traditional Cottage Hospitals.

The end finally came for Beulah House on 31 October 1973. On 14 May 1973 the Hospital Board stated that it would inform the public of the closure of Beulah House. They also said that full use of the facilities should be made right up to the closing date and that all those directly concerned would be informed.

When the Blyth Hospital House Committee met on 10 ^.December 1973 they put on record their appreciation of the service given by the entire staff of Beulah House. They stated that all staff either accepted alternative employment or resigned voluntarily. The Principal Nursing Officer stated that he had written to all staff and that all staff had been offered alternative employment within the Group. Three out of ten Nurses employed had given written acceptances. Mr. A. J. Lennon P.N.O. undertook to remind staff who had not yet replied. Some staff had replied that they would not be able to accept alternative employment due to domestic problems involving future hours of work and travelling difficulties.

Blyth Hospital House Committee met for the last time on Monday 11 February 1974. The minutes recorded that a Community Hospital was to be built on Laverock Hall Road in Blyth which would have at least 100 beds but no completion dates were given and no specific mention of a maternity unit was made. The minutes end with the stark statement, “Committee disbanded.”

The Development of Ashington Hospital

On February 18 1966, The Northumberland Gazette printed a statement from Mr. J. Bernard, the Secretary to the Wansbeck Hospital Committee.

“After 25 years as a Maternity Home the Mona Taylor Unit at Stannington will be absorbed into The Thomas Taylor Homes.

Patients and staff will be absorbed into a Maternity Unit planned as part of Ashington Hospital’s £11.4 million extension programme. Until then it will continue to provide a service. The new maternity unit will have 74 beds, a Nurses’ Home and a Midwifery Centre.”

The County Welfare Committee’s Annual Report for 1961 announced that a further record had been established when mothers brought 28240 children to Child Welfare Clinics. This was an increase of 30% (7000 children) since 1951. It also noted that the infant mortality rate was still below the national average and that a major factor in this improvement is close co-operation in antenatal care between Family Doctors, Midwives, and Health Visitors.

When The County Medical Officer of Health published his Annual Report in1962 he reported that the co-operation between the three parts of the Maternity Services was maintained at a high level. The 1962 report also recorded that the birth rate had reached 8,416. Live births had fallen slightly from 19,3% to 18.25% per thousand of registered births. Of the 159 still births recorded in Northumberland, 80 were premature. In 1964, 83% of confinements were in hospital and the infant mortality rate had fallen again.

All of which attests to the success of the NHS approach to joined up Maternity Care but the law of intended consequences struck. The success of hospitals in coping with such a large proportion of confinements in itself raised a problem. Mothers discharged from hospital would then receive post-natal care from Domiciliary Midwives but the number of home confinements has fallen and actual experience of home deliveries was reduced.

The first hospital in Ashington was built in 1913 and served the town until 1993 when Wansbeck General Hospital was built. In the 1960s the hospital underwent extensive redevelopment and after years of campaigning and complaint it was at last to include a maternity unit.

Finally, in 1967 the redevelopment of the Hospital was near completion. The Hospital Secretary’s report on the progress of Phase 2 of the project noted that the Nurses’ Home had been taken over and occupied the previous week. The contractors said they would hand over the new maternity unit building by the end of June and the department would open on 1^st August1967. After a very long wait women in and around Ashington finally had a local maternity unit.

While many in Northumberland mourned the loss of the small, local maternity units the centralization off the service in the1960s, did for the most part, improve  both ante natal and post-natal care mothers and their children received.  No system is perfect but M.O.H reports prove that huge improvements had been made in the provision of Maternity Care in Northumberland.

In an earlier blog, we looked at the different planning applications which were being submitted in the early part of the 20th century. Our work in cataloguing the planning files for Castle Ward Rural District Council has now reached the 1940’s and it is not surprising to note that the nature of applications began to change, to prepare for war.

We have come across the planning application, dated July 1940, from the Newcastle Education Committee, to install air raid shelters in the houses on the Cottage Homes site. Interestingly, these shelters were not below ground but were reinforced rooms on the ground floor of each building, beside the external side wall. They were only 5-6 feet wide, and each shelter had an emergency exit to the outside. I suspect these rooms were used as stationary cupboards or storage when the site became Police Headquarters. Another interesting point to note is that the plans cover all the houses occupied by the resident children, but the Masters House (which became the Chief Constable’s Office) was not included. Perhaps the Headmaster received an upgraded shelter!

It is also quite apparent from the applications, that the Ministry of Agriculture was keen to maximise home food production. In August and September of 1941, they made three separate submissions of plans to build hostels for agricultural workers at Whalton, Stamfordham and Ponteland. The plan for Middle Drive, Ponteland is dated 14th August 1941 and marked with the official stamp from the planning office, however the word ‘approved’ is clearly crossed out. We have no indication that any of these hostels were built.

However, in 1943, the same Ministry submitted plans for houses this time, planned for Capheaton, Belsay, Whalton and Stamfordham. The plans were approved on 8th April 1943, however using Google Maps & Earth, we can see that the Capheaton and Belsay plans never made it off the paper. The other plans were both for a pair of semi-detached homes at Stamfordham and Whalton. Stamfordham is easy to confirm, as the location was marked on the plan and the houses can clearly be seen at this location on Widdrington Drive in the village. Whalton was more difficult as the plan of the location does not appear to have survived, however further detective work suggests that these are the four houses appropriately named Castle Ward Cottages on the edge of Whalton, as the road heads towards Belsay.

Having planned for safety, and to house the agricultural workers, there was one slightly more unexpected matter to take care of – that of increasing numbers of prisoners of war. In May 1942, The Ministry of Works and Buildings submitted a plan for a proposed P.O.W. Camp, No.69 to be built on Middle Drive, Darras Hall. Records show that the camp was in use between 1945 and 1947. Once the prisoners had been repatriated, the development of housing in Darras Hall could continue and these days there is almost no sign that the camp ever existed. We say almost because the existence of this camp probably explains why some residents of Darras Hall have found German coins when digging their gardens.

One of the aims of the Northumberland Archives Charitable Trust is to improve and promote access to documents held within Northumberland Archives.  Projects have been funded to list collections as well as adding descriptive content to existing collections.  This additional information is added to our catalogue making the content available and searchable via the Online Catalogue on the Northumberland Archives website either at home or in the search rooms.  The current cataloguing project focuses on a collection relating to two farming families in Northumberland, Atkinson and Marshall, who also had farming interests in Sutherland, Scotland. 

In 1824 Adam Scott, a manager working on Atkinson and Marshall’s farming operation in Sutherland wrote to his employer Anthony Marshall for a reference to support his application to be Agent of the Australian Agricultural Company.   

The Australian Agricultural Company was formed in 1824 following an inquiry into the use of colony land in New South Wales, Australia.  Land, in the region of one million acres, considered to be waste land was identified as being suitable for agricultural development. The intention was to cultivate and farm the lands, using in part cheap convict labour, to produce fine merino wool which could be exported back to Britain.   

When this request was made, Scott had been employed by Atkinson and Marshall for several years.  The Atkinson and Marshall papers include some documents relating to the wages of shepherd’s and ‘men’ working the Sutherland farms.  Adam Scott first appears in the year Whitsunday 1818 to Whitsunday 1819 which details his annual salary as  

money – £30; meal – 52; sheep – 80; cows 2 + 1 [summer] 

A little more context to this is given in a document entitled ‘Employment of Adam Scott, manager of Shin Farms, Sutherland, 26 May 1823 to 26 May 1824, working for Messrs. Atkinson and Marshall’.  Details of his salary or ‘agreement for serving’ are: 

cash £30 

80 sheep grassed upon the farm 

2 cows grassed all the year 

1 cow grassed the summer half year 

52 stones of meal [i.e. oatmeal] 

Meal found for clippers; and Meal allowed for people who come to his house, upon business.   

The sheep kept to be a fair proportion of ewes, yield sheep and hoggs.   

To have a house kept, and his expenses paid, when from home, on business. 

In August 1824 Anthony Marshall wrote about Adam Scott’s character and qualifications; it is clear from the correspondence that Marshall held Scott in high regard.  Having learned of Scott’s “intention to offer himself as a candidate for the situation of agent”, Marshall states that Scott has had “sole management of a very large sheep farm in Sutherland” for upwards of nine-years, suggesting that Scott’s employment predates the wage accounts above. 

His character is described as: 

“[he has] conducted himself in a way highly creditable to him and in every respect satisfactory to us” 

“[he has] much activity of body, and mind, and [is] capable of enduring great fatigue, he is sober, steady” 

Scott’s abilities are also described: 

“for the management of a sheep farming concern of whatever extent, there is no man, with whom I have ever been acquainted, upon whose skill and conducting I would place greater confidence” 

The confidence expressed by Anthony Marshall, however, did not appear to be shared by Adam Scott himself.  The following month Scott wrote to Marshall stating that “the person the company wants must be more a factor than a sheep farmer; and would require abilities and education such, as is not to be found in a humble individual like me”.  Scott goes on to express that he lacks the necessary experience; the role requires experience in business, land surveying, magistrates as well as employing subordinate agents and hundreds of labourers.  Scott’s letter accompanies a more formal reference document in which he asks Marshall to be ‘candid’ in his responses about his capabilities as he does not wish to “deceive the company and obtain a situation, I am not able to fulfill”. 

The reference asks a range of questions relating to personal characteristics such as moral character, conduct in social life, temperate habits as well and capabilities to do the job in question.  Marshall still praises Scott’s capabilities, but as requested also responds candidly: 

“Tho’ he [Adam Scott] has not had the advantage of a liberal education, he is, in my opinion, quite capable of conducting a correspondence, by letters; upon farming subjects” 

“he has not had much experience as an agriculturalist.  But, as far as I have had an opportunity of judging, he perfectly understands the system, as it is practised in Scotland” 

“Almost the whole of his life having been occupied, as a farmer he can not be supposed to possess very much knowledge of general business; but he is in my opinion, very capable of acquiring it” 

“…as far as the rearing and management of sheep on the Company’s objects – and as a steady, sober, active and persevering man, I can with confidency recommend him” 

Marshall concludes the reference by acknowledging that Scott lacks experience particularly in land surveying, as a magistrate and controlling subordinate agents and labourers.  He also notes that Scott “has not been accustomed to manage merino sheep”, the breed of sheep being farmed in New South Wales as opposed to the Cheviot sheep farmed in the Sutherland farms. 

We do not know what happened to Adam Scott next.  Robert Dawson was the Chief Agent for the Australian Agricultural Company between 1824 to 1828.  Whether Scott was successful in a ‘subordinate position’ or decided to remain in Scotland is unknown.  The correspondence relating to the employment reference is the last to refer specifically to Adam Scott whilst working for Messrs. Atkinson and Marshall.  There are documents that refer to ‘Scott’ however, whether is this Adam or perhaps one of his brothers who also worked for Atkinson and Marshall?  The only hint is a letter from Marshall to Thos. Scott in 1840 where he asks that “I beg to be remembered to…my old friend Mr. Adam Scott, when you see or write to him”; suggesting that Adam Scott is unlikely to be in Australia! 

The Atkinson and Marshall papers are still being listed, so the documents referred to do not have reference numbers yet.  When completed, the online catalogue can be searched using terms ‘Adam Scott’, ‘Australian Agricultural Company’ or ‘wage*’ to locate the Reference Number.