Children North East Archives - Northumberland Archives

Dr T. M. Allison

21/04/2015 by Stannington Sanatorium Project

Thomas Moffatt Allison was born in 1861 in Guisbrough, North Yorkshire, the son of a mining engineer. He went on to study medicine and appears to have moved to Newcastle in the 1890s and by 1901 is recorded in the census as living and working at Dene House Hospital, a private hospital in Ellison Place, Newcastle.

During this time he was heavily involved with the Poor Children’s Holiday Association (PCHA), the charity behind Stannington Sanatorium, holding the role of Honorary Physician to the PCHA and sitting on its General Management Committee. Through his position within the charity he was instrumental in the establishment of the sanatorium at Stannington, which is clear from the annual reports of PCHA. In the 1906 annual report Dr Allison explains what is currently being done to tackle tuberculosis in the area as well as detailing the benefits that a sanatorium at Stannington will bring:

“Speaking of consumption, we have had quite a number of examples of local tuberculosis (bone and gland cases), and also of lung tuberculosis (or consumption), during the year. These we have provided for as well as we could, – having regard to the danger of infecting others if sent to homes where there are other children – that is to say, we have isolated them as far as possible, and provided sputum flasks, etc.

But to cope properly with consumptive children there must be a proper place for them. And we are indeed glad that next Spring our Stannington Sanatorium – (the first in England) for Consumptive Children, will be ready for opening.” [HOSP/STAN/1/3/2]

Patients and Staff Outside the Sanatorium c.1920s [HOSP/STAN/11/1/54]

Once the sanatorium opened in 1907 his close involvement with institution continued as he took on the role of visiting physician and quite clearly held the sanatorium and its young patients close to his heart. The matron in July 1916 made the following comments about a visit he made:

“Dr Allison brought out with him a gentleman to look over the Institution – he also gave me £1 to buy something for the children & has promised to send us records for our gramophone.” [HOSP/STAN/2/1/1]

Various reports on the early days of the Sanatorium along with newspaper articles from the time show Dr Allison to have been a consistent presence in some of the day to day operations of the Sanatorium and not just the medical side of things. His presence at social events and in children’s Christmas parties is reported upon on several occasions.

During his career he wrote extensively on the treatment of tuberculosis and childhood disease with many articles and letters published in the British Medical Journal. He was also active in other areas of local society and was the President of Newcastle Rotary Club and also stood for parliament as a coalition candidate for Morpeth Borough, but was unsuccessful in this particular political venture.

He died in Newcastle on 9 October 1928 leaving a widow, Frances Sarah Allison. His son Gordon, a Lieutenant in the 1^st King George’s Gurkha Rifles predeceased him having died in action in north-west India on 8^th June 1919 aged 20.

Sources:

‘A Nation of Workers. Will a Nobler Understanding Arise from Comradeship?’, North-Eastern Daily Gazette, 4 Nov 1916

‘Northumberland. Vigorous Contests Anticipated.’ Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 20 Nov 1918

Social Conditions

11/03/201511/02/2015 by Stannington Sanatorium Project

Many of the children admitted to the sanatorium came from impoverished backgrounds and had poor living conditions, nearly certain to be a contributing factor to them contracting TB. Some of the common risk factors for contracting tuberculosis include overcrowding, malnourishment, a weakened immune system, being either very young or very old and a lack of access to medical care to ensure treatment and prevention. Consequently, the following account from the records of Stannington Sanatorium hardly comes as a surprise and is by no means unusual.

This particular case from the 1940s perfectly illustrates the challenging conditions and the effect of childhood diseases. The girl, patient 145/1946, was admitted to Stannignton Sanatorium in October of 1945 at the age of 3. Her case notes indicate that she had already had measles and pneumonia and had been suffering from her present condition of tuberculosis of the right knee for the past 18 months. After 4 years of treatment she was considered fit for discharge at which point the living conditions she had left behind at the age of 3 are made clear. The local medical officer reports that

“The home conditions in this case are appalling. The housing accommodation is only two rooms, in which are already living four adults and five children.”

With this borne in mind the medical staff, unsurprisingly, consider it counterproductive to discharge the girl home and within 3 months she is instead discharged to the Briarmede Nursery in Gateshead. Medical staff were obliged to take into consideration the living conditions of all patients and consult with local medical officers in the relevant districts before discharging their patients or risk undoing much of the good that had been achieved during the child’s stay in the sanatorium. Where conditions were not satisfactory children could be discharged to other institutions, as above, or could find themselves staying at the sanatorium longer than was medically necessary, a situation which the doctors were obviously keen to avoid.

For many children coming from backgrounds such as this, being removed to the sanatorium, whilst it may have been difficult being separated from family at such a young age, may in fact have been a blessing in disguise. Even without the effective drug treatments we have today, the instant improvement in living conditions would have made untold differences to their health and wellbeing. In each child’s case file it is quite common to see descriptions of their living conditions in their general and family history, taking into account the type of house they were living in, the number of occupants, and the sanitation available. This information alongside correspondence from the children’s parents requesting support for applications for improved housing gives us a great insight into some of the social conditions across the North East during this period.

The image below is taken from a brochure produced by the sanatorium in 1936 to promote their services and show images of one patient at four different points in time to illustrate the success of the treatment that Stannington provided. (HOSP/STAN/9/1/1)

See also our later post on Harris Lines.

The Opening of Stannington : the First Children’s TB Sanatorium

12/12/2014 by Stannington Sanatorium Project

This week we have another guest post kindly provided by Dr Hazel Jones-Lee on behalf of Children North East detailing the establishment of the Sanatorium by the Poor Children’s Holdiay Association, the predecessor to Children North East:

The opening to patients on 15 March 1908 of the first Children’s Sanatorium in Great Britain at Stannington, Northumberland, was the culmination of a lengthy and tireless process by the Poor Children’s Holiday Association to improve the health and wellbeing of poor children by taking them out of the fetid air of the slums of Newcastle to the fresh air of the seaside or countryside.

Against a background of a national Fresh Air Movement, the PCHA’s founders, J.H.Watson & J.T.Lunn, began work in 1891, by taking 120 poor children for a day at the seaside in Tynemouth. Supported by the generosity of local people, this modest scheme expanded rapidly in 1894 to include country holidays of two-three weeks for those sickly or weak children who needed a longer period of fresh country air. By 1901, 8796 children a year went on day trips and 214 on country holidays: even so, it was soon clear that more was needed.

At least as early as 1903, the charity’s honorary physician, Dr.T.M.Allison, was calling for separate treatment to be available for the many consumptive children in the region, whose condition might be improved significantly by a prolonged stay in the country with “food and fresh air, shelter and sunshine’ , but who could not be sent into the country homes where they might infect others.

Accordingly, a small sub-committee of the PCHA was set up in 1903, and having established that there was no conflict with the focus of the existing County of Northumberland Sanatorium Committee chaired by Lord Armstrong, produced a plan at the AGM of 1904 proposing an interdependent three-part scheme: a farm on which to train rescued street boys who were not suited to city life; a Boys’ Convalescent home and finally a Children’s Sanatorium.

White House Farm at Stannington, with 173 acres, had already been found by the time the formal appeal for the £11,000 needed to fund the scheme was launched on 28 April 1905. Thanks to the generosity of one of the Charity’s supporters, Mr. Roland Philipson, £5000 was promised to add to the £3500 already available from the Trust Fund of another supporter, the late Mr.Robert Scott. These gifts, together with further donations or low interest loans, meant that the plans could go ahead. (Their magnitude is apparent if we compare the ‘pleasant surprise’ at the donation of £500 to a rival southern scheme felt by Rev. Edward Bedford of Great Ormond Street, writing to Dr. Allison on October 6, 1905 )

The tenant farmer, Mr. Atkins was retained as farm manager to train young boys in farm work to produce the high quality food and milk needed for the future Sanatorium and by the autumn, 6 boys were already at work, with a further 14 to follow.

The design of the Sanatorium was heavily influenced by Dr. Allison, who insisted on the inclusion of many French windows topped with fanlight arches to let in as much light as possible (see photograph below) and on occasion the architect, W.T. Spence, was asked to modify his design to suit. Finally, on October 5, 1907, the building was opened by the Duke of Northumberland and the first of the 50 patients admitted on March 15 1908.

There is an early example of the effectiveness of the simple regime of ‘food and fresh air, shelter and sunshine’ on the patient to the left of the photograph (left), taken in 1908. ‘M__J__S came to us from a Workhouse. She was in the last stages of consumption, having a cavity in both lungs, and was terribly wasted and thin. In a month’s time she put on 6 1/2 lbs. weight…her cough has now almost gone, all spitting has ceased, and we are hoping that instead of an early death there is a long and useful life before her.’

Between March 15 and October 31, there were 52 patients, of whom 10 left with the disease ‘arrested’, 2 very much improved, 3 went home to die and 37 remained under treatment. Given that there was no attempt to select only the ones most likely to thrive, this was a remarkable achievement. More was to follow.