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Tring Isolation Hospital

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Date: 1899-1949
History: Tring Isolation Hospital was opened on 19 December 1901 by Lord Rothschild. Tring Urban District Council had seen the need for an Isolation Hospital for some time prior to that, but had been unable to raise the necessary finance. However, Lord Rothschild made a loan to the Urban District Council which enabled the hospital to be built. It was situated in Little Tring Road in Tring and contained 20 beds. In 1902 Tring and Aldbury Isolation Hospitals combined their services, with Tring taking all the cases of smallpox and Aldbury all the cases of scarlet fever. The Hospital was used in the First World War as a military hospital. In June 1948, just before the National Health Service was created, the decisiom was made to close Tring Isolation Hospital, given that it was not frequently used (3 patients being the highest number accommodated at one time in the last few years) and that there was another isolation hospital at Aldbury only a couple of miles or so away.
Places:
  • Tring, Hertfordshire
Sources of authority: Poor Law Amendment Act 1868; Public Health Act 1875; Isolation Hospitals Act 1893; Public Health Act 1936
Functions, occupations and activities: Health and social care > Hospitals
History Links: webpage of tring Isolation Hospital
Historical context: Many towns had some form of isolation hospital from the eighteenth century, usually in the form of a pest house, where verminous or infectious people were treated. It was not, however, until the late nineteenth century that the formal treatment of infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever, typhoid and smallpox, was considered. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1868 dealt briefly with the subject, since most patients with infectious diseases found their way into the workhouse infirmaries because voluntary hospitals could and did refuse to admit them. In 1875 the Public Health Act enabled any local authority to provide hospital accommodation for the treatment of patients with infectious diseases paid for by the rates. It also allowed for two or more authorities to combine to maintain a hospital. In 1893 the first Act relating solely to isolation hospitals was enacted, stating that, on the application of twenty-five or more rate payers, the local authority was to provide an isolation hospital out of the rates, to be run by an Isolation Hospital Committee. Those suffering from TB found themselves in specially appointed sanatoriums and those suffering from VD in the workhouse infirmary. Isolation hospitals were also permitted to open schools or nursing to train nurses specifically in the treatment of infectious diseases. A further Act was enacted in 1901 reinforcing the powers of local authorities to purchase land compulsorily for use as an isolation hospital. In 1936 a further Public Health Act abolished all Isolation Hospital Committees and replaced them with Joint Hospital Boards. Medical advances meant that in the years after the Second World War the need to provide such hospitals became redundant, and many of them were closed in the first years of the National Health Service.
References: Hosprec database; Burdetts and Hospital yearbooks 1901-1951; Genealogy in Hertfordshire website
Name authority reference: GB/NNAF/C26387 (Former ISAAR ref: GB/NNAF/O91882 )
Collections
Number Description Held by Reference Further information
1
1901-1948: records incl minute book and admission register
Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies
HI11
NRA 11973 Hertfordshire
2
1899-1949: records
Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies
UDC 18/36-58
NRA 27390
Related record creators
  Record creator Description of relationship Dates Category of relationship
1
Aldbury Isolation Hospital
The two hospitals combined services
1902-1948
Associative
2
Tring Urban District Council
Tring Isolation Hospital was built and managed by Tring Urban District Council
1901-1948
Hierarchical