1880-1906, Dr Hayward and the founding of the Cottage Hospital

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This is information that we received some years ago about the history of the practice and Haydock Cottage Hospital - we don't have attribution for the author -  if anyone has details we will gladly add this. 

 

Richard Evans & Co were generally acknowledged to be enlightened employers.  The Company had suffered the Queen Pit disasters of 1868 and 1869 when 26 and 57 lives were lost respectively from firedamp explosions.  At the coroner's inquest into the second explosion, Mr Higson, Inspector of Mines for the area, was critical of aspects of safety at the pit.  Yet he concluded `I do not connect Mr (Joseph) Evans with the explosion.  Mr Evans said that if he was asked for ten thousand pounds to make the pit safe, he would have found it.  I believe it and I believe he would have given double the amount....'

 

On 7 June 1878 about 200 men and boys were killed by another firedamp explosion at Wood Pit.  I have not been able to trace any record of the Evans family's response to that tragedy.  However, in 1880 Dr Thomas Ernest Hayward, aged 26, came to Haydock as part time Colliery surgeon with the right to practice in the district,  He married shortly afterwards and his wife was one of the first nurses to train at St Thomas's in London under Florence Nightingale.

 

Why Thomas Hayward in particular was appointed I do not know.  It may be more than coincidence that Richard Evans' youngest child, Emma, had married an American doctor, Theodore Drayton Grimke, at St Thomas's Ashton, in 1854.  In 1876 they founded the medical mission and dispensary in Greengate, Manchester, which in time became famous for its treatment of sick children.  Perhaps their paths had crossed with those of Thomas Hayward and his future wife, Catherine?

 

Thomas Ernest Hayward was born in Tewkesbury in 1855 and gained an entrance scholarship to St Bartholomew's Hospital in London.  He qualified in 1877 and worked in London, including the East London Hospital for Children, where his future wife Catherine was Lady Superintendent of Nurses.  Before moving to Haydock in 1880 he was `Registrar and Chloroformist' at the Evelina Hospital for Children.  In 1880 he also became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

 

The 1881 Census (St Helens Library) included

 

No 2 Haydock Green  (now Church Road)

 

Thomas E Hayward, age 27, surgeon FRCS, born Tewkesbury

Catherine Hayward, age 34, born Scotland

Elizabeth Wilson, age 24, single, general domestic servant, born Haydock

 

No 1 Haydock Green

 

Arthur H L Evans, age 32, (first son of Josiah Evans). "no occupation, living on money interest"; his wife Mary (born Ashton); daughter Mary aged 4; two domestic servants

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One night Dr Hayward asked his wife to assist him in attending to a man who had been run over by one of the Colliery locomotives.  At the man's home Dr Hayward, with his wife's assistance, amputated the man's leg at the thigh with the only illumination being an inferior paraffin lamp.  After a long period `during which nursing was carried out under great difficulties' the man made a good recovery.

 

This experience brought home to the Haywards the urgent need for a hospital in Haydock `where serious accidents were a relatively frequent occurrence'.  On their own initiative they rented a cottage, No 266 Church Road and transformed it into a hospital.  There were four beds, a room for a resident nurse, Miss Laura Wilson, and a kitchen.  `The site of the original hospital is that half of Mr Dan Knight's premises which is neared to Penny Lane' (later a furniture shop).  This cottage hospital opened in 1883 and Mrs Josiah Evans contributed £100 towards the maintenance for the first year and in the second year Miss Kate Evans gave £100.

 

The first meeting to discuss building a cottage hospital was held at Dr Hayward's house, 26 Church Road, on 11 May 1885.  Mrs Evans had donated £500 from her private money on condition that the hospital was built within two years.  Mr (  ) Evans gave a further £500 in `bricks and mortar'.  Lord Newton had promised the land.  On 17 June plans were approved for building the hospital, at an estimated cost of £958.  The hospital opened in July 1887.  The salary of the Sister-in-charge was £3.13s.8d per month.

 

In a letter of 18 March 1932 to her old friends Mr & Mrs Part, Mrs Hayward implies that Miss Ruth Evans made something of a take-over bid for the hospital in its early days in New Boston and was not pleased to have her offer of paying the cottage's rent turned down.  Some time later a Mr Squires [probably John Squires, grandson of Richard Evans] offered the use of a house on the banks of the canal but she said that it was too far away.  In the end Mrs Lydia Evans greatly helped her, although the latter was suspicious of committees and tried to persuade her to manage without one.

 

Mrs Hayward also states that `the Colliery had no hand whatever in the early days of the Cottage Hospital, and for some time after'.  She also said `I look back to the time I had at the Hospital with great pleasure ... I met with great loyalty from all my workers, with one exception'.

 

The foundation stone was laid on 7 August 1886 by Mrs Josiah Evans.  When Lord Newton visited the newly opened hospital, Mrs Hayward said they could do with some more land for `the patients were walking about the road and being unpunctual for meals'.  He had already given the site on condition that the hospital be used for residents of Haydock and for miners in the Haydock pits.  He then gave another large piece of land behind the hospital.

 

There was accommodation for ten patients.  Of the cost of £3624, nearly four times the original estimate, at least £2100 was given by the Evans family and Company.

 

Amongst other donations the Wesleyan chapel gave a piano for the Sunday Evening Services and a gold key to open it with.  (Prior to the First World War, the Wesleyan choir used to go to the Hospital after Church on Sunday evenings to sing hymns).

 

By 1891 all the miners in local collieries were paying 1/2d per week in return for the right of free admission for accidents.  In 1891 they raised £312.10.8d, which implies that there were about 3000 contributors.  Six beds were added in 1892 with the building of the West Wing to accommodate female patients.  Of the cost of £450, £200 was donated by Richard Evans & Co.

 

At that time too the employees of SW Pilling & Co (then building the South Lancashire, Liverpool and St Helens Railway) were permitted to join the contributory scheme, but only in respect of accidents received at work.  (The Great Central Railway Station opened in January 1900.  Thomas Oakes was Station Master).

 

In the report for 1893-4, of 73 patients admitted, 46 were from Richard Evans & Co and 5 from SW Pilling & Co.  In 1893 a sixteen week coal strike exhausted funds and the following year a new appeal for funds was launched.

 

During 1895 several concerts for the benefit of patients were organised by Mrs Hayward.  On several occasions she had to enforce discipline and bring the concerts to an end as she observed `a little light music may be beneficial but too much of it tended to cause excitement which was not good at night for the patients' temperature charts'.

 

An item in the `Newton and Earlestown Guardian' on 29 July 1898 is typical of countless incidents involving pit accidents

 

EARLESTOWN MAN KILLED AT HAYDOCK

 

Thomas Caine, aged 32 years, died on Thursday night from injuries received a few hours before at Wood Pit (where 200 man and boys had died 20 years earlier).  A married man with four children, he lived with his family at 86 Leigh Street, Earlestown.

 

He was engaged getting coal on Tuesday afternoon when a fall occurred and partly buried him, inflicting serious head injuries.  He was taken to the Cottage Hospital and treated by Dr Hayward, but he collapsed and died at 10 o'clock.

 

Mr Brighouse (the County Coroner) held an inquest at the Wagon and Horses on Saturday.  George Rogers, the drawer for the deceased, could not work the coal owing to shot having been fired.  He discovered that there was a crack at the side and attempted to get coal when it fell on him.  The witness said that he was obliged to keep the boxes going or he would have got into trouble.  That was why he started to get coal.

 

Mr T Glover, JP, Miner's Agent (an early union official), said the deceased had not holed the coal and that was why it came down on him, fracturing his skull.

 

Verdict:   Accidental Death

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In July 1900 there was a report of a colliery explosion at Haydock.  `Last Friday's explosion was the worst in the village since the Wood Pit explosion of 1878.  The cause was a sudden and unexpected outburst of gas whilst a gang were engaged in sinking operations at the colliery.

 

`Gladys Owen, nurse at the Cottage Hospital, said Thomas Gilliard was admitted between 6 and 7 in the morning: he was badly burnt.  She was present when he died.  Patrick King was admitted at the same time and died at 12.50.

 

`Martha Marsh Jack, sister of the hospital, said Babey, King and Flaherty were admitted between 6 and 7 suffering from burns.  Babey died at 1 am on Sunday morning.  King died at 8.20 on Sunday morning.  Flaherty died on Monday morning.

 

`The injured men who are still in hospital are Mark Luke, chargeman, aged 52 of Legh Street, Earlestown; Thomas Woods, aged 51 of Fairclough Street, Earlestown; Luke Dillon, aged 39 of 23 Queen Street, Golborne; John Fitzpatrick of 1 Heath Lane Ashton-in-Makerfield.

 

`Dr Hayward and his assistant and the entire hospital staff have been unremitting in their attentions to the unfortunate men.

 

`On enquiring at the Hospital it was found that the four men were slightly better but they were not yet out of danger.

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In May 1901 another incident was recorded in the same paper.  John McGee of Juddifield Street, aged 14, was helping some men unload bricks from a tub underground.  He was caught by a moving rope and sustained a fractured skull.  On being taken to the Cottage Hospital sister Martha Marsh Jack asked him how the accident happened, but `he made no reply and died later'.

 

Verdict:  Accidental Death

 

Probably in the late 1890s Mrs Hayward arranged for a Nurse Graham to come to Haydock as District Nurse and shortly afterwards she was joined by a midwife.  They were in lodgings locally and there were plans to build a cottage for them, but this never came about owing to Dr Hayward's sudden death in 1906 and Mrs Hayward leaving Haydock.

 

In March 1898, Dr Hayward had an assistant named Dr John Richards.

 

An entry in a 1904 year book reads:-

 

Haydock Cottage Hospital

 

President - Mrs Josiah Evans                                               Hon Secretary - E J George

 

Governing Body - Committee of Management (consisting of 10 members with the Trustees), meeting second Thursday.

 

Medical Officer - T Ernest Hayward

 

Nursing Staff - Hon Lady Superintendent, Mrs Hayward; 1 sister, 3 probationers

 

Beds - 16   Average number occupied - 10                 Patients (1902-3) - 127

 

Terms of Admission - Free to work people at pits on payment of 1/2d per week.

 

Income (1902-3) - £639                                                  Expenditure (Ordinary) - £517

 

At the turn of the century the village midwife was Sally Heywood.  She may never have received a formal training.  One lady born around that time remembers the children copying her by folding their arms across their chests and carrying a basket on their heads, the way she carried her equipment, and singing "I'm Sally Heywood".  She retired after the First World War when she was in her 70's.  Her daughter did receive a hospital training and succeeded her mother, working in Haydock for many years.  She lived in Pewfall with her bachelor brother, Jack, and was succeeded in turn by Nurse Lake.

 

On Saturday 2 June 1906, Dr Hayward became ill and died at Clipsley Lodge six days later of `an acute attack of laryngitis'.  The funeral took place the following Tuesday.  The St Helens Newspaper and Advertiser noted: `The cortege started from Clipsley Lodge at 1 o'clock and throughout the township the signs of mourning were universal.  A deputation from Haydock Wesleyan Chapel, under the superintendence of Mr Chalmers, preceded the hearse.  The Young Men's Bible Class and Mrs Hayward's Women's Bible Class were also represented.

 

`The mourners included Mrs TE Hayward, Mr C Hayward, Dr & Mrs MacKenzie (Huddersfield), Dr & Mrs Thomson, Mrs S Kemp (Sister of Haydock Cottage Hospital), Nurse Graham, Nurse Anthony, Mrs Stockley (late sister of Haydock Cottage Hospital), Mr John Robinson and Dr Arthur Dowling (Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Haydock District Council), `Maggie, Annie, George Herbert and Mrs Chick'.

 

`He was a medical practitioner of unusual culture and ability, and his opinion was held in high esteem by his fellow medical men.  The conscientious and faithful discharge of his duty was essential to his happiness and this laid upon his sensitive and kindly nature a very severe tax.  He gave with a liberal hand and was quick to feel any expression of appreciation.  Dr Hayward was absolutely without any self love, and his life was spent in doing good to others.  He was distinguished by his intellectual power and by his simple Christian faith, and he carried the spirit of the Master into his daily life.

 

His obituary in the British Medical Journal of 23 June 1906 greatly praises his exemplary character and his meticulous construction of life-tables, his `chief original work'.  By these he was able to show that pulmonary `phthises' (TB) was responsible for lessening by 2.5 years the life expectancy of children born in Haydock in 1881-90, and by over 3 years those who survived to 15.  In 1902 he presented a paper on `Mortality from phthises and other tubercular diseases' to the British Congress on Tuberculosis.

 

For 18 years he was Medical Officer to Haydock Urban District Council and pressed the Council to improve the sanitation and drainage system of the township, something that was occurring in 1906.  He had acted temporarily as Medical Officer of Health for St Helens during the illness of Dr Drew Harris.  In addition he was also medical attendant for the local branch of the Lancashire an Cheshire Miners' Permanent Relief Society.

 

He also founded the St John's Ambulance classes in the district and examined candidates for them, and also for nursing and midwifery exams.  He gave evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee for the Midwives Bill which `gathered as it was from actual knowledge of what goes on in the homes of the labouring classes of Lancashire, carried great weight'.

 

`It would be easy to multiply examples of testimony to the very exceptional beauty and unselfishness of Dr Hayward's character.  To those who knew him, his example and life will always constitute one of their happiest memories and most powerful incentives to an altruistic life'.

                                                                                                                   A.N.      

 

The 1902 Medical Directory adds local appointments such as Medical Officer of Health , Haydock Urban District.  Contributor `On local Life tables by Abbreviated or `Short' Methods'.  Public Health 1898.  `On life tables: their construction and practical application'.  Journal Royal Statistical Society volume lxii.

 

                                                              Check with `Public Health' in the 1890's for a

                                                              report by TE Hayward about endemic fever.

 

Ernest and Catherine Hayward had no children.  Mrs Hayward died in London on 27 September 1927 and they are buried together in Wargrave Cemetery.

 

 

From `Richard Evans of Haydock'  by Geoff Simm (1988):

 

Richard Evans (1778-1864) moved North from Surrey in 1827 (he had made his money initially as a publisher and printer in London) possibly attracted by the business opportunities envisaged by the start of the building of the Liverpool to Manchester railway in 1825.  In 1829 he bought an eleventh share in a colliery in Edge Green near Ashton and in 1833 bought Haydock colliery from Thomas and William Legh, Lords of the Manor and large local landowners.  They had mined in Haydock for a number of years (there was an extensive coal industry in the Haydock/Lowton/Edge Green area owned by the Legh family as early as 1755). They had already built a tramway to the Sankey Canal and later a railway to the Liverpool and Manchester railway.

 

 

Emma Evans (1827 - 1905) was the youngest daughter of Richard and Ann Evans and married American Doctor Theodore Drayton Grimke (1818 - 1886) at St Thomas' Ashton in 1848.  In 1876 they founded the medical mission and dispensary in Greengate, Manchester.

 

NB:  No record under `Drayton' or `Grimke' in 1881 Medical Directory.

 

 

Lydia Evans (1822 - 1904) was the daughter of George Hadfield, MP for Sheffield and the second wife of Josiah Evans (Son of Richard Evans).  She had the final wing of Haydock Cottage Hospital built and organised visitors for the township to help the sick and needs.  She also helped the `Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Movement' [In Haydock?].  On the chimney stack on the West Wing is the date AD 1892.

The Heyes      

 

 

11 December 1884

Dear Mrs Hayward

 

I write to thank you very much for your note which Mrs Grimke ..being here for a good part of two days.  I could not well answer earlier and seeing you is so much better than writing that I called for this purpose on her leaving this afternoon.

 

Your questions are rather difficult to answer.  May I put a few in reply?  I ask whether Mr Glover and Mr Ashton would consent to work together?  Also would Mr Jackson and B...y?  The hospital must not all between two stools.  Of the pit management I know very little just now, but if you have a Committee I dare say they would act.

 

May I ask ...... talk the matters ...... over ....., have you any ..... beyond what appears on the surface?  In proposing a committee is it for self protection?  Is it because you think you may leave Haydock in the course of a year or two and you wish to see the hospital well settled in the place?

 

I don't like the .......... which frequently arises in Committees and other times seems lost.  Whatever should we do without you and Dr Hayward and Nurse Wilson?  We should be almost lost in a maze.

 

The hospital is yours dear Mrs Hayward and you have the right, for we look to you to act as you see best.

 

Pardon my brief note.  Till we may meet, kindly accept a few apples.  The green ones are American.

 

With my love

 

Yours very sincerely

 

Lydia Evans

                                                                                                         

 

The Heyes   

 29 April 1885

 

My Dear Mrs Hayward

 

I send you a cheque towards the new hospital for £500 and I hope the remainder will follow from others, so that you will soon get all in progress.  At the same time I send it with .... a wish for the prosperity of the institution by whomsoever built.  Only I have confidence in your superintendence and in your giving to offence in any way.  Either using my name as a well wisher or the non-mention.

 

I think I ought to make it conditional on something being done for raising the building in the course of two years and completing it by then.  Also that your plans are followed.  And perhaps it would be well to keep this note ... ... ... the date of the same.

 

With kind regards

 

Yours very cordially

 

Lydia Evans

 

If you enter names you might put

 

                 `Mrs Josiah Evans                         £250     

                 `Friend of Mrs Josiah Evans        £250

 

Kindly acknowledge receipt.  If paid at once into account at bank a little interest will accrue.

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`The Florence Nightingale Letters'                                     

 

The following letter from 1895 is in the Whiston Hospital School of Nursing:

 

10 South St. W.

June 10/85

 

Dear Mrs Hayward

 

I have enquired of the most competent authorities concerning your question.

 

`Burdett's Cottage Hospitals' gives plans of existing Cottage Hospitals and gives plans of some good ones.  It appears to give costs of building of specified Hospitals.

 

(It has a very unsound chapter on Maternity Hospitals.)

 

My informants do not know of any other collected series of drawings.

 

But they say the book Mouat and Saxon Snell would probably give better designs.  However these seem to be all of larger Hospitals.

 

"The man who built the hospital at Birkenhead two or three years ago seems good Hospital Architect" - you probably know his name.

 

I am sorry to give no more specific information but would gladly answer any further questions that I could and would undertake to have your sketch plans, when prepared, carefully looked over.

 

Success to your undertaking - excuse pencil.

 

Yours ever faithfully

 

Florence Nightingale

 

 

There is also an undated postcard:

 

I will very gladly try and help in the way you ask but I am more than usually overworked and ill just now.  And I cannot `recommend', tho' there are so many, any " plans" or "books" of "Cottage Hospitals" on the spur of the moment I will enquire.

 

One thing I can promise at once, that if you will send me at any time the sketch of your future Hospital, I will have them revised and carefully overhauled.

 

Ever yours faithfully

 

Florence Nightingale

 

                               

Old Whint Hospital and Infectious Diseases

 

Opened July 1887 as a Cottage Hospital   ?? source ??

 

Kelly's 1914 Directory states `St Helens county Borough (Old Whint) Smallpox Hospital was erected in 1893 and enlarged in 1903 at a cost of £750 and will hold 750 patients.  Dr JJ Buchan MD, ChB Glasgow, DPH Cambridge, was Medical Superintendent and Miss Burgess was Matron.  In 1895 Haydock Council asked St Helens Health Authority to send smallpox victims to the hospital via Parr and Havannah rather than up Blackbrook.

 

In 1903 the hospital received 232 cases of smallpox from St Helens and 2 from Haydock.

 

One man remembers delivering milk from Alkers Farm (opposite `The Huntsman') to the hospital in 1920.  It was a few hundred yards down Old Whint Road, on the right, with the railway behind it.  Another lady was told not to go near when it housed injured soldiers during the First World Was as she might catch `the itch'.

 

Closed in 1931.  It might have been used as a TB hospital in the First World War.  It was used as a maternity hospital until 1926 and then as a children's hospital for the last five years.

 

Thomas Hayward was Medical Officer of Health for Haydock from 1888.

 

12th report for 1899. The phrase `zymotic disease' crops up several times in this report, referring to recent advances in microbiology which has identified the causative organisms behind several common infections, for example typhoid and scarlet fever.  12 cases of typhoid, 7 of scarlet fever and 1 of `continued fever' (whatever that was?) had been admitted to the `fever hospital' (Old Whint).

 

The water supply was direct and continuous from Rivington reservoir and 240 yards of sewers had been laid in Church Road.  Dr Hayward recommended `drainage demands anxious consideration and planned sewers should replace privy middens'.

 

`If disease due to the tubercular bacillus could be abolished an average of four years would be added to the life expectation (probably equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day today).  Dr Hayward comments that the tubercle bacillus was more devastating than Mauser bullets or Lyddite shells, reflecting the Boer War being fought at that time.

 

16th report for 1903.  The main point was the dramatic fall in deaths of children under the age of 1 from 16.4% in 1902 to 0.2% (?) that year (now it is less than 1%).

 

 

                                           Mrs Catherine Hayward

 

From The History of Nursing at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, William Brockbank, Manchester University Press, 1970.

 

She was appointed the second `Lady Superintendent of Nurses' at MRI after the following advertisement had appeared in `The Times', `The Lancet' and `The British Medical Journal':

 

Manchester Royal Infirmary.  The post of Lady superintendent of Nurses will shortly become vacant.  the successful candidate must be thoroughly trained in all the duties of a practical nurse and familiar with the more modern systems of nurse organisation.  Salary to commence at not less then one hundred guineas per annum with Board and Lodgings.

 

Miss K MacKenzie, then Lady Superintendent at the East London Hospital for children was appointed.  In a letter dated 22 November, 1879, she asked the Management Committee for permission to introduce the name of `Sisters' for the Heads of the Wards.  This was granted but appointment was difficult because beer was not allowed to nurses at the Infirmary.

 

She also started the earliest register of nurses.  Some entries were:

 

Ø      E Brindrett.  Engaged 20 October 1879.  Would have made an excellent nurse.  Her health failed after being here for several months.

 

Ø      M Allen.  Engaged 15 April 1880.  Excellent reports.  Trustworthy and thoroughly reliable.  Does exceedingly well.  Left to `better herself' May 1882.

 

Ø      Ellen Hemming.  Engaged 1 November 1879.  Has been in male surgical and women's surgical, male medical and women's medical.  Reports not so satisfactory as they ought to be.  Sent to Monsall 24 October.   DEAD

 

Ø      Mary Ann Williams.  Engaged 20 November 1880.  Refused to go to Monsall.  Dismissed July 1881.  Would have made a good nurse.

 

Ø      Elizabeth Jones.  Engaged 24 November 1880.  Too young and giddy but a good willing worker.  Dismissed.

 

Miss MacKenzie resigned in the Autumn of 1880.  On 16 November the Board expressed its gratitude by resolving that `On the retirement of Miss Mackenzie (now Mrs Hayward), the Lady Superintendent of Nurses, after faithful and satisfactory services, the thanks of the committee are hereby tendered to her with best wishes for her future happiness'.

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