Neston & District War Memorial Cottage Hospital 1920-1964 

During World War I a temporary Red Cross Military Hospital, shown here, was set up in the Neston Institute (this now houses Neston's Civic Hall). After the war this was closed. In 1919, there was a sum of cash remaining along with the hospital's equipment.  Many felt this presented an ideal opportunity to establish a hospital for Neston as well as serve as a memorial to those who had fought and fallen in the war.

As a result the Neston and District War  Memorial Cottage Hospital came to life in 1920. With the remaining cash and other funds raised by donation from local wealthy people a house known at the time as “Dee View”, on Little Neston Green, was bought to accommodate the hospital. A committee was formed and the eleven bed hospital was opened by the first Lord Leverhulme on 26th June 1920. The District Nurse at the time, Christina Bell, was given the post as the hospital's first Matron.

Before the formation of the NHS in 1948 the hospital was governed by an executive committee. This included several representatives such as the local doctors, the hospital governors, Neston Urban District Council, and The Merseyside Hospitals Council. It's financing came from fees (about two thirds) with the remainder from collections, donations, and investments.

The fees themselves varied according to the accommodation and treatment provided, and according to whether the patient lived in the district or not. Fees:-

• a resident occupying a bed in one of the public wards - 15 shillings a week
• a bed in a private ward - £7.7.0.
• Patients from outside the district - £1 for a bed in a public ward, or £8.8.0. for one in a private ward.
• insured patients -   friendly societies - Oddfellows, the Shepherds,“The Liverpool Penny in the Pound Scheme” or Neston Female Friendly Society, paid for hospital treatment.
• The poor - Free accommodation and treatment was provided.

• the main source - Subscriptions Scheme, for  covenanted giving. Subscribers were automatically registered as hospital governors, and, as such, they elected representatives on to the Executive Committee.
• donations made by individuals
• Neston Council
• social and sports clubs,
• from legacies,
• church collections,
• collecting boxes placed in pubs and shops,
• special events, like dances.
• Gifts in kind - books and periodicals, crockery and cutlery, flowers, fruit, and vegetables, and regular loads of farmyard  manure - used in the Hospital garden.

Operating Theatre in 1936

When a patient was admitted their own doctor usually provided their care and treatment and routine operations, e.g. tonsils and appendices. As there was no lift staff had to carry patients up and down to the ground floor theatre. There were no porters so the theatre nurses and doctors had to do this. A lift was installed when the Hospital became part of the NHS.

Staff photograph taken on the eve of the hospital’s closure.
 

From the left:

Back row: Mair Davis; Elsie Jones; Gladys Stallard; Agnes Hutchin; Sadie O‘Byrne; ? Gilbertson; Clara Cottrell; Nancy Boswell; Mary Jellicoe; Edith Cottrell; Fanny Parry.

Front row: Dorothy Phillips; Bertha Kelsey; Mildred Vickary; Flora Mcllroy; Olwen Whiteway; Enid Egner (Collection Elsie Jones).
 
In addition to  the patient's own local doctor consultants visited the Hospital as well but any patients needing major surgery were transferred to Clatterbridge Hospital.  There was also an Outpatients’ Department which acted as an A&E department. In 1928 the hospital was extended and as a result the number of beds incresased from 19 to 31. After that further extensions were built for Physiotherapy and to enlarge the Outpatients’ Department.
 
After many years service Matron Bell retired on the 30th September 1934 and Mildred Vickary took her place. She came from being a Sister at Victoria Central Hospital, Wallasey. During World War II many patients came to the hopital from Birkenhead and Wallasey's hospitals.

On 1st January 1948 the Hospital became part the National Health Service.  After that changes came of course and in the late 1950s the operating theatre was deemed to be unviable and closed with surgury carried out at Clatterbridge. After that Neston Hospital was downgraded to the status of a nursing home and the final blow came in 1964 when the hospital was closed. The building was demolished  in 1967.
Neston Hospital Woman's Ward in 1936. Matron Vickary is on the far left in the dark cape.

Jeffrey Pearson in "Neston and Parkgate Remembered", provides a fitting tribute to the hospital and the many staff who served there ... "No doubt there were overwhelmingly good reasons why Neston War  Memorial Cottage Hospital - like so many small hospitals throughout the  country - should have been closed. No doubt that by concentrating human and other resources at large hospitals a far greater efficiency was achieved than under the old order. But, in achieving that efficiency, something valuable was lost. That something was the comfort which was brought to  patients by the knowledge that they were being nursed in their own community. They could look out of the windows and see their neighbours going about their everyday routines and, of course, it was very easy for  relations and friends to visit them. And, as a footnote, it should be recorded that the demolition of the  handsome local sandstone building, with its prominent, spirit-lifting, spire, delivered a hard blow to the character and ambience of Little Neston Green."
Miss Vickary's apointment offer as matron . .
     

Some hospital staff - Sisters Bertha Kelsey, Flora Mcllroy,  Olwen Whiteway, former Junior General Duties Assistant Muriel Jones (later Sister at Clatterbridge Hospital), and former Cook-seamstress Elsie Jones.
"Neston and Parkgate Remembered", by Jeffrey Pearson, published 1998. referenced the following sources: "Neston and District War Memorial Cottage Hospital Annual Reports for 1943, 1944, 1945 (Silver Jubilee Year), and 1947-48.
Whiteway, Olwen “My Happy Memories of Old Neston” (Unpublished paper, 1993)"