Professor Jonathan Reinarz has arranged a virtual event via zoom with a colleague at the University of Birmingham.

“Blood Transfusion During the Wars of French Decolonisation (1946-1962)”Online research workshop with Dr Benoît Pouget (Sciences-Po Aix)

Dr Bruno Pouget will present his current work as a historian of medicine in times of colonial conflict, exemplifying pluri-disciplinary directions taken in the field of medical humanities. The session will include time for methodological discussions. Wednesday 13 July: 2.00-3.30 pm. This event is organised by Berny Sèbe (b.c.sebe@bham.ac.uk) as part of the Forging Links research stream in the Department of Modern Languages (School of Languages & Cultures, Art History and Music) in partnership with the History of Medicine Unit (College of Medical and Dental Sciences).

To join on the day follow Zoom link: https://bham-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83852778426?pwd=HkrikNabErw0j55Qt0QMvppTzcgH6Q.

Event poster available to download.

When one of our volunteer researchers discovered her own family history was linked to local medical care in Worcester she was very excited. For several years Sarah has researched subscribers to the Worcester Royal Infirmary (for her degree dissertation) and patients at Powick Mental Hospital (for a Masters and a World War One Hundred funded project for the GMMM) so finding a link of her own to Worcester’s medical story was exciting. This month marks 200 years since the Worcester Dispensary was first publicly discussed, so we thought it was a great time to take a closer look at it. The first meeting to create a committee and discuss the creation of Worcester Dispensary was in February 1822, and later that month a building in Bank Street was rented for its purpose.

At dispensaries patients were treated as outpatients, a little like at the GP today, as well as the doctors conducting home visits. In 1750 possibly the first dispensary was built in Stroud, and from 1770 onwards dispensaries were popping up throughout the country including several in London. Locally, Tewkesbury Dispensary opened in 1816, before Worcester’s opened in 1822. By end of the century there were at least 100,000 admissions per year at such establishments. In Worcester, the hospital had begun in 1746, a long time before the dispensary, but towns in the north of England tended to get a dispensary before a hospital. The institution was funded mainly by subscription, just like the infirmary. Subscribers such as merchants, shopkeepers and skilled tradespeople, originally ‘recommended’ patients to use its facilities. Patients would see an honorary physician like at the infirmary, who usually had a separate private practice with paying patients elsewhere in town. There was also an apothecary who probably resided at the dispensary, sending for the physician when necessary and administrating patients as they arrived.

Extracts from the Berrows Worcester Journal from 1822 show it was a busy year. Having met first on 7th February to discuss setting up the infirmary, by mid-February a committee had been elected, rules drawn and local physicians appointed. Physicians linked to the dispensary included Dr Woodyatt, Dr Malden, Dr Hastings and Dr Lewis, as well as a surgeon, apothecaries, dispenser and a secretary and subscriptions had already started to be collected including from the Dean of Worcester, the Mayor of Worcester several local vicars and the doctors listed. Robert Berkeley Esq, T W Lea, Capt Aldham and Lord Viscount Deerhurst all became early subscribers. By August a second ‘fashionable night’ at the Theatre Royal (in Angel Street) was performed for the benefit of the dispensary, and further subscriptions could be deposited at ‘the banks and reading rooms’ around the city.

In 1850 the Worcester Dispensary committee decided to rebuild. Having rented the property in Bank Street since 1822, the committee finally bought the building and it was redesigned by local architect Mr E Perkins who also worked on the Victorian Cathedral restoration. The new Worcester dispensary building was rebuilt by Richard Ganderton (Sarah’s ancestor) in 1850. It was still in Bank Street where it had begun. Richard Ganderton, Sarah’s great (several times) grandfather employed 50 men according to the 1851 census, and had been involved in building several things around Worcestershire, including the church at Far Forest, a rectory in Herefordshire and a circus building along Barbourne. He even subscribed to the Worcester Infirmary for a few years . The dispensary had been running since 1822 in Bank Street Worcester (next to WH Smiths today), perhaps in the hope of the contract to build the Jenny Lind Chapel, but was pipped to that job by Joseph Woods.

In 1901 a satellite dispensary was opened in Barbourne, at 2 Sunnyside Road (opposite Gheluvelt Park) and a second satellite was opened in St Johns at 48 Bromyard Road (near the corner of New Road). By this time though there was a growing view that charitable care encouraged the dependence of the poorer classes perhaps at the same time as increasing affluence of working people. This led to the establishment of ‘Provident Dispensaries’ where potential patients paid a small but regular subscription themselves to get free care when ill, and Worcester Dispensary changed to this style of funding. This was the germ of a health insurance system that in 1911 would be formalised with the National Insurance Act.

Worcester’s Dispensaries may have continued for many years, even after being subsumed into the National Health Service. The building on Bank Street was demolished when the Crowngate Shopping centre was created, and the satellite dispensaries were returned to housing when GP surgeries took over their patients.

For more information about the Worcester Dispensary, and Richard Ganderton you can see Sarah’s previous blog on explorethepast.co.uk.

The Infirmary open monday to Friday 10am-5pm

George Marshall Medical Museum open monday to friday 9am-5pm and closed on bank holidays