Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital

Please note these are records of the former Department of Health and Social Security. Due to the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018 protecting personal data, the Admissions Registers, Registers of Nursing staff and clinical records are closed for 100 years. The Closure Period is calculated from the date of the latest entry in any one volume. In certain cases access to material falling within this period is possible on application to Archive staff of the Caird Library and Archive.

Please contact Archive Staff for more information about ordering from this collection.

Series Note re Admission Registers: Our DSH series of admission registers solely cover in-patients and do not include patients admitted at the Albert Dock Hospital. Individuals who were treated as out-patients are therefore not included. For example, there are some cases of shipwrecked seafarers being fitted with artificial limbs at the Greenwich Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital, but these individuals do not seem to appear in the admission registers. The Albert Dock Hospital which opened in 1890 was intended for the reception of serious and urgent cases which could not be easily transported to Greenwich. Tilbury Hospital, operational from 1924, was the former Passmore Edwards Cottage Hospital run by the East and West India Dock Company. It included a pavilion devoted to the treatment of 'Lascar' seamen.

Related Materials:

Ref: RLHAD: Records of the Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital, Alnwick Road, London E16 3EZ (1916-1979) are held with Barts Health NHS Trust Archives: https://www.calmview.co.uk/BartsHealth/CalmView/TreeBrowse.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&field=RefNo&key=RLHAD

Ref: SA/SHS: Records of the Seafarers' Hospital Society. Originals and selected digitised items from the Seafarers Hospital Society archive are now located at the Wellcome Collection, but are not yet catalogued available for public use. See https://wellcomecollection.org/works/txdsfx9x

Records of The London School of Tropical Medicine (Albert Dock) are held at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Archives, including photographs of the original building.

Administrative / biographical background
In the early years of the nineteenth century Zachary MacAulay and William Wilberforce established a fund for the relief of distressed seamen. The committee appointed to manage the fund met for the first time on 8 March 1821 and from this meeting was formed the Seamen's Hospital Society. The purpose of the new society was the establishment of a hospital solely for seamen. The 48 gun GRAMPUS was loaned by the Admiralty for conversion as a hospital ship and she was moored at Greenwich in October 1821. Within the next ten years it became clear that the accommodation in the GRAMPUS could not meet the demand and in 1831 the Admiralty agreed to replace her with a larger hulk, the DREADNOUGHT, previously used by the Royal Navy as a hospital ship at Milford Haven. In 1833 the hospital was incorporated by Act of Parliament as 'The Seamen's Hospital Society'. In 1832 the high incidence of cholera prompted the Central Board of Health to convert the DOVER as an isolation hospital and she joined the DREADNOUGHT at Greenwich. The Society took over the maintenance of this ship in 1835, also taking responsibility for other ships as time went on to combat outbreaks of disease. The DREADNOUGHT in turn proved inadequate to cope with the numbers, principally merchant seamen, requiring medical treatment and in 1857 she was replaced by the 120 gun CALEDONIA, renamed DREADNOUGHT by special permission of the Admiralty. Debate arose in 1860 as to whether the hospital ship should move to a more convenient mooring or whether a new base should be sought ashore. Application was made to the Admiralty for the tenancy of the then little used Greenwich hospital, and in 1867 it was agreed that part, at least, of the building should be made available. After further negotiations, the Admiralty in 1870 leased the Infirmary, together with Somerset Ward to the Society at a nominal rental. The DREADNOUGHT hulk remained in use at Greenwich until 1872 as isolation accommodation. The Society continued to expand, opening branch hospitals and other establishments including, in 1877, the Dreadnought School for Nurses. With the advent of the National Health Service in 1948 the hospital and its branches were handed over to the Minister for Health, the Dreadnought Hospital itself surviving as a hospital for seamen, administered by the Seamen's Hospital Management Committee until 1974. This committee was succeeded by the Greenwich and Bexley Area Health Authority and later, in 1982, by the Greenwich Health Authority. The hospital was closed in 1986. Bibliography: McBride, A. G, 'The History of the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital at Greenwich', Seamen's Hospital Management Committee, Greenwich, 1970. Plumridge, J. H 'Hospital Ships and Ambulance Trains', London 1975. (Both of these volumes are available in the Library as PBN7334 and PBB4449 respectively)