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The National Hospital in East Finchley Part 3 Royal Past - Uncertain Future Many readers will have watched the Stephen Poliakoff drama, The Lost Prince, on television. Not all may be aware, however, that Johnnie was not the first member of the British Royal Family to suffer from epilepsy. Queen Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, died in 1884, aged only 31, leaving behind a young wife, a baby daughter, Alice – and an unborn son. Throughout his short life he suffered from haemophilia as well as epileptic fits. However, he managed to attend university (despite his mother's objections), and at Oxford became very friendly with John Ruskin, who gave him an enthusiasm for reform and social justice. In 1882 Prince Leopold presided at a fund-raising dinner in aid of the National Hospital for the Paralyzed and Epileptic, Queen Square. In commending the hospital for affording "relief to maladies of so peculiarly mysterious and distressing a nature", he was speaking from painful personal experience.
The National Hospital in 1998. Photo by Erini Rodis It was thus appropriate that in June 1897 his widow Helen, Duchess of Albany, should perform the opening ceremony for the Country Branch of the National Hospital at East Finchley. The Hendon and Finchley Times reports that she "was received at the entrance to the grounds by a guard of honour of the 3rd Middlesex Rifle Volunteers". There followed, according to the Hendon Times, "a long", and according to The Lancet, "a short religious service", and an Oxford contemporary of Prince Leopold's, Mr George Russell, made "a speech, primed with pleasant personal recollections". Poignant Memories Time passed – with visiting days, summer garden parties, and homegrown winter entertainments round the fire. The building was requisitioned by Middlesex County Council during the Second World War, but re-opened in 1947, and in the 1960s upgraded and extended. Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, performed the opening ceremony in July 1967. She was then in her mid-eighties – no longer the baby in a high chair, with an uncanny resemblance to her grandmother, Queen Victoria; but perhaps dimly remembering her doting father, Prince Leopold, who played the ‘piano organ’ to amuse her, while John Ruskin danced to its music1. And what of the future? If the current development scheme succeeds, the convalescent home and its fine grounds will soon be only a memory. But a memory which reflects credit on East Finchley and its warm-hearted welcome to the National Hospital Home, at a time when sufferers from 'nervous diseases' were shunned elsewhere. 1 Charlotte Zeepvat, Prince Leopold - The untold story of Queen Victoria's Youngest Son, 1998, Sutton Publishing Ltd. |
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