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The National Hospital in East Finchley By Alison Stein (February 2003) Part 1, 1870–1898 In 1860 a group of philanthropists, led by the two Chandler sisters from St Pancras, and their brother Edward, founded the first specialist hospital for sufferers from ‘nervous diseases’, the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, in Queen Square, London. At the time, epileptics were virtually excluded from any kind of paid employment. Such was the popular fear of ‘fits’ that until the Poor Law was amended in 1868, epileptics and the paralysed were regularly consigned to the ‘insane wards’ of workhouses. Even in the late 1890s, letters to the Lancet debated the question “Should epileptics marry?” Not one convalescent home in the kingdom would accept patients suffering from ‘nervous diseases’. By 1870 the National Hospital had grown in size and in reputation, and decided to establish its own convalescent home, or ‘Country Branch’. East Finchley was an ideal choice, since it was within easy reach of London, but still set in open, attractive countryside. Appeals raised the £3,000 needed to buy and adapt two semi-detached villas ‘within a short walk of the railway-station’ to house twenty female epileptic patients. We have not been able so far to discover the exact location of ‘The Elms, East-End, Finchley’, but the Home certainly flourished here up to 1897.
The National Hospital in 1896. Photograph supplied by Peter Bell Care in the country On a sunny day in July 1871 guests assembled for the opening ceremony, followed by an informal tea-party on the lawn. Prominent among them were Miss Johanna Chandler, and her brother Edward, who had been given free rein to lavish his artistic talents on fitting out the new Home. As well as being homelike, bright and welcoming, it was furnished in the latest style, as the National Hospital fervently believed that the quality of their environment contributed to the patients’ recovery. To conclude the afternoon’s festivities, Edward Chandler had hired a ‘ladies’ band’ from an agency. The ‘Blondinettes’, wearing identical blond wigs and skimpy blue dresses, leapt from the shrubbery, and started to play for the bewildered guests. Thus the association of the National Hospital with East Finchley began on an unconventional note; it would continue, but on a somewhat larger scale, in a new building next to the Railway Station. And this time the opening ceremony would be graced not by a bevy of Blondinettes, but by a Duchess. |
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