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East London Hospital for Children And Dispensary for Women Shadwell |
| "The Children’s Hospital", as it was called locally, in
Glamis Road, Shadwell was opened in 1877 by H R H the Duchess of Teck. On their first wedding annerversity Dr Nathaniel Heckford and his wife, Sarah, moved by the plight of the children along the riverside, had started the original Hospital near Ratcliffe Cross Stairs in 1868. With the help of Charles Dickens, who called the Hospital "A Small Star in the East" and wrote about it in the "Uncommercial Traveller", the Heckfords were able to raise sufficient money to build the "East London Hospital for Children" in Glamis Road. After purchasing the land for the new Hospital, Dr Heckford died a few days later from overwork. He was just twenty-nine years old. By 1888 the East London Hospital for Children, with 135 beds, was treating 1,003 children in-patients and 18,265 women and children out-patients. In 1932 the name of the Hospital was changed to the "Princess Elizabeth of York Hospital for Children". The Queen Mother’s family, the Bowes-Lyons, were large landowners in Shadwell and the road was named after their Castle in Scotland. Despite the destruction all around, the Hospital stayed open throughout the Second World War tendering the ill, the injured and the dying. In 1942, the Hospital merged with "Queens Hospital for Children" in Hackney Road to form the "Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children". It was a very sad day for local people, many of whom had been treated at the Hospital when children or had their own children treated there, when it closed on the 30th April 1963. Within five years the buildings were demolished. Today the site of the Hospital is an "adventure" playground for children. |
