The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-07-27 00:00:00

THE PRINCE OF WALES AT THE
LONDON HOSPITAL.

On Monday afternoon their Royal Highnesses the Prince
and the Princess of Wales informally visited the London
Hospital, and spent an hour in carefully inspecting the dif-
fereot wards Though the occasien was strictly private a
large crowd assembled, and loudly cheered the Royal
visitors—The Tunes, in giving an account of the visit, also
adds several particulars respecting the Hospital, which may
be generally interesting
"On the 4th of July, 1864, the Prince of Wales,
accompanied by the Princess of Wales, laid the first
stone of a new wing of the London Hospital, which is
called the Alexandra wing, and the Prince on that
occasion wrote in the visitors' book that he found
everything connected with the hospital in a highly
satisfactory and efficient condition. The Prince and
Princess of Wales paid another visit to the hospital,
and after a minute and careful inspection of the wards
the Prince of Wales wrote in the same firm and
legible handwriting in the book of the hospital the
following words, which were signed by himself and by
the Princess :

'July 22, 1878.—1 have great pleasure in giving as satisfac-
tory an account of this hospital as I did 14 years ago.
'ALERT EDWARD P.
'ALEXANDRA.'

"The Queen's visit to the hospital two years ago,
when the Grocers' Company's wing was opened, led to
a large accession to the funds of the institution
but the £24,C00 then raised was spent in a
single year. The endowment of the hospital
produces £14.000 annually, but its annual ex-
penditure is £44,000, although with the Duke of Cam-
bridge as President and the Governor of the Bank of
the Bank of England as treasurer it has excellent
guarantees for the economical and efficient adminis-
tration which it is believed to attain. To meet its
wants for the next five years a special fund of £25,000
a year, to consist of donations given annually for
that period, is now being raised. Towards
that fund many of the large employers of labour
in the neighbourhood have liberally subscribed;
but much yet remains to be done. The Lon-
don Hospital was instituted for the reception and
relief of artificers, manufacturers, mariners in the
merchant service,' and others, in 1740, a few years
after Guy's, and centuries after the ancient founda-
tions of St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas. Its first
president was Charles, Duke of Richmond and Lennox,
who was succeeded by William, Duke of Devonshire.
The presidents since then have always been of Royal
blood; and in 1850 his Royal Highness the Duke of
Cambridge succeeded his father in that honourable
post. The Alexandra wing was to have been formally
opened in July, 1866. The epidemic of cholera,
however, which broke out that year in the east of
London frustrated this intention, and the new build-
ing was devoted to the reception of patients at a few
hours' notice. During the prevalence of the epidemic,
865 patients were admitted into the cholera wards, be-
sides nearly 13,000 treated as out-patients. The total of
in-patients in 1866 was thus raised to 5,109, while the out-
patients numbered 45,206. The public service rendered
by the London Hospital in staying the progress of this
formidable disease was at once acknowledged. Con-
tributions were sent in from every part of the country,
and all apprehensions of financial embarrassment
were dissipated. The donations received in 1866
amounted to £28,000. Many improvements were then
made; and in 1868 the people's subscription fund was
established, by which there has been raised in the
neighbourhood £9,317 in the last ten years. The pence
of workmen produced in the last year £1,200. By
1872 the wards had become overcrowded. The Grocer's
Company made a munificent donation of £25,000;
nearly £70,000 was raised from other sources, and the
Queen's visit in 1876 again established the finances of
the hospital for a time.
"The London Hospital differs, however, from the
hospitals at the western end of the metropolis in not
being brought by its buildings before the eyes of the
wealthiest inhabitants of London. It is situated where
it can be most useful—on a high road of great traffic,
in the midst of a labouring district which has a popula-
tion of a million persons. It is surrounded by
extensive manufactories, close to the docka and
to the shunting yards and goods stations, in
which the traffic from all parts of the country
meets. .N o establishment could be better placed for
the purposes of studying or alleviating the results
of accident and disease; but great efforts are needed
• from time to time to remind Western London of
the existence of the hospital and of the claims
it has to support. It maintains 790 beds, and relieved
more than 12,000 persons (2,612 in-patients, 9,423 out-
patients) in 1877. The accidents received here are
estimated to be as numerous as those at any three
other metropolitan hospitals. It is the largest
children's hospital in London, and has also special de-
partments for skin diseases, cancer, ophthalmia, and
urgent obstetric cases. A public meeting in support
of the hospital, and of the special fund of £2 ),000
a year now being raised, was held at the Mansion-
house on April 4 this year, at which the Prince of
Wales was unable to be present. His Royal Highness
. wrote a letter to express his sympathy with the move-
ment and his high opinion of the public position occupied
by the institution. Since the Mansion-house meet-
ing his Royal Highness made known his intention
of inspecting the hospital in an informal manner.
Monday was fixed for the visit, and, although the
Prince of Wales, after travelling all night, only
arrived from Paris at ten minutes past seven on Mon-
day morning, he drove up to the London Hospital at
five o'clock in the afternoon in an open carriage, with
the Princess of Wales by his side. To avoid inconveni-
ence to the Royal visitors, the fact that they were to
come to the hospital on Monday had not been published.
There had been nothing but the red carpet which was
laid on the steps of the hospital to inform the people of
the visit, but in the afternoon a rumour of the coming
event got about, and a crowd was collected, which
greatly increased after the Prince and Princess had
been been actually seen to arrive, and cheered them with
a will as they passed out an hour later. The Prince and
Princess were attended by Miss Knollys, Lieutenant-
General Sir Dighton Probyn, and Lieut.-Colonel Clark,
who followed in a second barouche. They were received
at the entrance to the building by several of the officers
of the institution, and were conducted to the Com-
mittee-room. Mrs. J. H. Buxton offered the Princess
a bouquet of beautiful roses, which was graciously
accepted. Among those gathered to receive their
Royal Highnesses was the ruler of Bonny, on the
West Coast of Africa, George Pepple, an African
monarch now on a visit to this country, in which he
was educated. The King of Bonny was presented to
the Prince of Wales, by whom he was received with
cordial courtesy. There were also present Mr. John
Henry Buxton, chairman of the committee for the
special appeal, and Mrs. Buxton; Mr. J. Gurney
Barclay, by whose care the wards were made bright
and fragrant with fresh flowers; Sir T. Powell
Buxton and Mr. T. F. Buxton ;Dr. Andrew Clark,
the senior physician; Mr. Octavius E. Cooper, M.P. ;
Sir Edmund Currie; Dr. Herbert Davies, consulting
physician; Captain lugh Davis, R.N. ; Mr. H, H.
Gibbs, Governor of the Bank, treasurer; Mr. Samuel
Gurney ; Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, the senior surgeon;
Mr. Andrew Johnston, Mr. C. A. Leathern, Mr.
Frederick Young; Mr. James Luke, consulting
surgeon; Mr. A. G. Snelgrove, secretary; Mr. Day,
Miss Swift, Mrs. Nixon, and other friends and sup-
porters of the institution.
"The Prince and Princess proceeded from the Com-
mittee room to the Buxton ward in the Alexandra
wing, where there are 20 little cots for children seven
years old and under. The ward was decked with
flowers, and the children were amusing themselves
with toys. The Prince and Princess went straight to
the cot which had been occupied by Katie Ambler,
the little girl to whom a few words of the Queen, on
her memorable visit, seemed to bring speedy recovery.
A child two years old, suffering from dropsy, lies
there now, and next to it a sick baby of five months.
The distinguished visitors made many minute inquiries
&bent the patients in the several wards. Mr. Hutchin-
son, the surgeon, and the Sisters who direct the nur-
sing (there are 27 head nurses, 127 under nurses and
probationers, as well as 70 male and female servants
in the hospital) were continually called upon to
give them practical information. In the Glocester
accident ward, which was visited after the Alexandra
wing, there are 64 beds for men and boys suffering
from the effect of accidents. William Henry, Duke of
Glocester, was president of the hospital from 1767 to
1805, and was succeeded in 1805 by 'William Frederick,
Duke of Glocester. The Albert ward is one of this
group. It was named in 1842 after the late Prince
Consort. Here a dock labourer, who broke both his
arms in falling down a ship's hold, men with com-
pound fractures of the leg, eec., and with their legs
in cradles, were typical cases. Much sympathy was
expressed with the dock labourer (Robert Thorn) by
both Prince and Prineess. In the Cambridge ward,
named in 1842 after the late Duke, lay a railway porter,
Frederick Lobb, whose arm had been amputated. He
WAR shutting the door of a railway carriage, when he
atumbled over a parcel on the platform, and his arm went
ireatwiags a in
down between carriage and platform. In one of these
Wards la oer a t
a e
es ei
hed, anbutw hh
d
pushedseh ed
had
the bandage
l cd h
ee
to see t e • Prince and Princess, and was eager after-
wards to tell how the Prince stopped d k d h
.an asked ow
he WaS. Oppoeite him was a
ir On shaft fell as he was workinerelnginaeeceriloanr wwhhoomwtna
eqaallY anxious to speak of the notice of the Princess.
The next man could repeat her exact words, I see
you are getting better ; you are up;' hi t
others re-
ported her speeches with the freedom with which Dr
Johnson would transcribe the proceeditgs of the Homo;
of Commons, and expressed the sense f othe gracious
Princess's words in the grammar and dialect of White.
chapel. Through the Beatrice ward the Royal party
entered the sun-lit and well-ventilated apartment in
the Grocers' wing to which her Majesty the Queen in
1876 gave the title of the Victoria ward. Here, as in

the ward called by the name of Prinoess Beatrice, were
young children who had scalded or burnt themselves,
fallen over hearth-rugs, or rolled into danger from the
arms of sisters a little bigger than themselves. The
surgical cases of children were also here, and in more
than one instance a mother sat beside her little one.
The Royal party went upstairs to the Rachael ward,
so called after Mrs. T. Fowell Buxton, in which the
Sister, a French lady, was able to speak with the
greater freedom of her patients because she conversed in
French with their Royal Highnesses. Typhoid, atrophy,
Bright's disease, glandular disease, phthisis, St. Vitus's
dance, had filled the wards on the first floor with pallid
girls, one of whom held a rose in her hand; another
was comforted by being allowed to nurse a pet cat;
most looked up brightly, very grateful for the sym-
pathetic smile which was never wantiug from the
Princess. It was worth lying here to see that,' said
one after her Royal Highness had passed on. In this
manner the tour was made of the Sophia, Augusta,
Granby, and Princess Royal ward; where much, of
course, that was painful had to be seen by the Princess.
In the Mary ward was an Indian girl from the foot of
the Himalayas who had married an English soldier
and was now being treated by the charity of a hospital
which is open as freely to the dark-skinned as to the
fair-haired subjects of the Empire. Through the
Charlotte ward the Prince and Princess passed into
the Victor ward, named after their own child. They
went back into the Committee-room, where the mallet
is still preserved which was used by them in laying the
first stone of the Alexandra wing. It was carved out
of a white-thorn which grew upon the spot.
"The Prince and Princess drove away from the
hospital amid cheers, after a full hour spent in
laborious examination of its details, and after the
Prince had written in the visitors' book the opinion
we have already quoted. His Royal Highness fur-
ther desired Sir Dighton Probyn to inform. Mr. J. H.
Barclay that he was exceedingly pleased with his
visit and was sorry that he was unable to see more of
the building."