Build 3 — 23 July 2026
Chapter 1B — House No. 1 of the Five Houses of Wandsworth Common
In 1876 Bolingbroke House was purchased for £4,500, through the auspices of The Vicar of St Mary's Church, Battersea, Canon John Erskine Clarke. Clarke was the main instigator of the project to use the building for the establishment of a voluntary pay hospital in the area, through public subscription and charitable gifts.
[PB: Something like this is repeated elsewhere — worth consolidating.]
A Provident Dispensary, with a resident doctor, was established in the house for out-patients only until enough money could be raised to open wards (the house was large enough to accommodate 50 in-patients).
The Bolingbroke Self-Supporting Hospital and House in Sickness opened in 1880 and became a small general hospital with 30 beds and an Accident and Emergency Department. It was one of the first to cater for both the artisan and middle classes. (While the rich could afford private treatment in their own homes and the poor received medical care in workhouse infirmaries, the middle classes could not afford private nursing care, but might not want to be admitted to an infirmary, such as the one on East Hill Poor Law Institution. In the late 19th century, hospitals for those who could afford to pay a moderate fee were established.) As with other voluntary hospitals, patients with infectious or contagious diseases, the mentally ill, the incurable, epileptics and maternity cases were not eligible for admission.
John Erskine Clarke (1827–1920) was a British clergyman who issued the first parish magazine. He established several other religious publications and was responsible for founding churches, schools and hospitals in Battersea.
Clarke inspired the building of several churches in Battersea during the second half of the 19th century. His own endeavours led to the building of St Mark's, Battersea Rise, St Peter's, Plough Road, St Matthew's and St Luke's in 1889.
[SV: WHERE IS THIS? — location of St Matthew's not identified]
Clarke was a member of the Board of Governors of the Provident Dispensary (Battersea), and saw an urgent need for an in-patient hospital in Battersea. Through public subscription and charitable gifts, Clarke was able to buy a house in Five Houses Lane, Battersea (now Bolingbroke Grove) where in 1880 a "House of Sickness" became the Bolingbroke Hospital. Clarke's aim was that the hospital should provide for "the artisan or self-respecting middle class people" who preferred to pay something for their care instead of going into a workhouse infirmary, such as the one on East Hill Poor Law Institution.
In 1893 a ward specifically for accident cases was opened, with casualties receiving free treatment.
IMAGE 3 – This shows Bolingbroke House circa 1880 having now been turned into Bolingbroke House Pay Hospital, with double storey wing extensions on both sides.
IMAGE 4 – [date/description needed?] – Showing Bolingbroke House as the Bolingbroke House Pay Hospital with further extensions.
At the end of the century plans were drawn up for the complete rebuilding of the Hospital, including demolition of Bolingbroke House.
The first phase was completed in 1901, when the Hospital was extended by a single-storey wing in Wakehurst Road, at the northeastern part of the site. The new building housed the Out-Patients Department and was named the Victoria Memorial Wing after Queen Victoria, who had recently died.
The second phase began in 1906, when Princess Louise laid a foundation stone for another wing to be added to the north of Bolingbroke House. It was named the Canon Erskine Clarke Wing and contained wards, an operating theatre and a mortuary. The 3-storey building also had a basement. Its flat roof was used as an airing ground for patients and staff.
[PB: There's the cutting from the ILN, and some nice images here.]
Patients taking the air on the balcony of Bernard Baron ward of Bolingbroke Hospital, overlooking Wandsworth Common, c. 1927. The hospital was enlarged in 1927 and 1937.
Another 3-storey ward block — the Bolingbroke Wing — was added just before the outbreak of WW1 in 1914. During the war, 20 beds were reserved for military cases transferred from the Third London Hospital. By 1917 this number had been increased to 25 beds. A prefabricated X-ray room was built (this was later converted into a chapel).
In 1925 the foundation stone of a new wing was laid by Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles. It opened in 1927 as the William Shepherd Memorial Wing, after William Shepherd, a "philanthropically minded builder". An imposing stair-tower divided the wing into two parts. The ground floor of the southern part contained an 18-bed ward. On the first and second floors were single rooms for private patients and a 4-bedded ward. A corridor connected the building to the Canon Erskine Clarke Wing.
[Placeholder — caption or text missing here?]
By this time, the Hospital had 120 beds, including 20 cots in a children's ward on the first floor of the Shepherd Wing. The Anne Carmichael Children's Ward was decorated with picture tiles of nursery rhymes and animals.
[PB: Say more about the Carmichaels? They were a prominent local firm of builders, with a large workshop and woodyard between Trinity Road and Heathfield Road.]
[SV: Date uncertain — is "circa 1900" correct here?]
In 1928 the weekly charge for a private room was 6 guineas (£6.30) or 4 guineas (£4.20) for a bed in a five-bedded ward. This fee included provision of care by the Resident Medical Officer and nurses, board and lodging, medicine, certain stimulants, surgical dressings and the use of the operating theatre. The cost of a special nurse, laundry, massage, pathology and X-ray examination was extra. The attending clinician was paid separately.
In 1928 the average weekly cost of an in-patient was £2 13s 2d (£2.66), compared to £3 13s 6d (£3.67) in 1927. The average length of stay was 17 days.
[SV: Are we really comparing 1927 with 1928? Only one year apart?!]
[PB: Is it really worth spelling out modern equivalents of the shillings and pence? Few people will care and it just adds to the visual clutter. Perhaps just have a brief summary at the start of the book?]
Following the addition of the new wings, Bolingbroke House itself was hemmed in on three sides, with its front facing the back of the Shepherd Wing.
In 1937 the old mansion was demolished and work began to build a central administration block to unify the frontage on Wakehurst Road and to create a main entrance for the Hospital.
[PB: Add some choice examples of people taken to the hospital after injury — showing its local importance.]
[PB: Make more of this biography? A box feature? Erskine Clarke is such an important figure. He pioneered illustrated children's magazines which he edited for decades. And add material on the hospital's extraordinary fund-raising activities — stunts such as Dan Leno's cricket matches, and fancy-dress balls at the Albert Hall. Some wonderful images.
Dan Leno ("The funniest man on earth") was involved in many fundraising stunts on behalf of Bolingbroke Hospital, including benefit shows at The Grand Theatre, Clapham Junction, and hilarious knockabout celebrity cricket matches photographed by Dorrett and Martin.]
[PB: Also fundraising fancy-dress charity balls at the Albert Hall.]
Bolingbroke House became Bolingbroke Hospital in 1880 and remained so until 2008. Here the pioneering regime of giving patients access to open views and fresh air was truly embraced. Those from the polluted streets of Battersea and Wandsworth really benefited.
The photo below in 1883 shows the hospital view and its balconies across the Common.
The photo here shows the Common became more densely planted with mature trees mostly of one type and it is this outlook Bolingbroke Hospital would have enjoyed.
[SV: WE SEEM TO HAVE GONE OFF IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION HERE!]
The census records show during the mid-19th century the following staff descriptions:
Footman, domestic servant, coachman, house servant — both men and women. For the scale of property we can assume maintenance of the extensive grounds were carried out by labour living both in the house or elsewhere. This is surprising as the sales particulars for 1858 quote "all requisite accommodation for a large establishment".
In conclusion, Bolingbroke House was the largest and longest surviving of all of The Five Houses.
Although it was the most prominent, the details of its garden and grounds show less sophistication and development than in some of the other four houses. It is possible that it did have, for example, kitchen gardens, ha-has and melon grounds but we have no evidence.
[SV: THIS NEEDS REWORKING]
Positioned at the northern end of the Five Houses it differed from the others. It was closest to the young road layout around current "Battersea Rise" and by the late 18th century to Bolingbroke Farm, while the others seemed to have less "development" around them. By the mid-to-late 19th century the cemetery and rail station had also developed close by.
When Bolingbroke House was demolished in 1937 the Hospital continued to operate between Wakehurst Road and Belleville Road until it closed in 2008, when the buildings were repurposed as the Ark Bolingbroke Academy.
Further Notes.
Appendix 1 includes details of the new Bolingbroke Hospital up until 2012 [see Appendix 1E — please confirm], when it became the Ark Bolingbroke Academy.
Obviously we'll be as accurate and as complete as possible, especially given this book is likely to be regarded as definitive for years to come. It would be good if we checked the content of this chapter against as many sources as we have available. It would also be useful to check for additional material. And let's ask Sue Demont to read this chapter.
Locate specific references in the Survey of London: Battersea:
1. A. Saint (ed.), Survey of London, Volume 49: Battersea, Part 1: Public, Commercial and Cultural (London: Yale University Press, 2013), p. XX. [Short form: Saint, Survey of London, p. XX]
2. Thom, C. (ed.) (2013) Survey of London, Volume 50: Battersea, Part 2: Houses and Housing (London: Yale University Press), p. XX. [Short form: Thom, Survey of London, p. XX]
Further references in History of Wandsworth Common / Chronicles [check]
Historic England: Bolingbroke Hospital.
Lost Hospitals: Bolingbroke Hospital
City St George's, University of London, Library: Bolingbroke Hospital. This appears to be based on the Lost Hospitals text.
Sue Demont's Talk to Friends of Wandsworth Common, September 2024: A Harley Street for the Poor? The Lives and Times of Bolingbroke Hospital (transcription using AI).
Other?
British Newspaper Archive contains many stories covering the whole life of the house and hospital. I have bookmarked quite a number, but haven't read them thoroughly, or cropped/copied/transcribed very many.
[PB: The material below is a first pass at the British Newspaper Archive coverage of Bolingbroke Hospital — primarily the South Western Star (1892 to early 1960s), which reported on the hospital regularly. There is a great deal of choice material. Worth going through it more systematically, covering: accident and injury reports; fund-raising activities; new buildings; appointments and jobs. The accounts of the reasons people were being brought in paint a vivid picture of local life in Battersea and Wandsworth.]
[PB: It might be worth making considerably more of the hospital phase, and in particular of the period when the original Bolingbroke House was still embedded in the midst of the expanding hospital buildings — hemmed in on three sides, its front facing the back of the Shepherd Wing, a grand Georgian mansion gradually being swallowed by Victorian and Edwardian additions. That is a compelling image in itself.]
By 1930 the hospital had grown almost beyond recognition from the house in which it began. Visitors attending the annual meeting of the Linen League (a charity supporting the work of the hospital) found the building a labyrinthine world of its own:
"To find the meeting place was not easy for those who knew the hospital only in its embryo days. Bolingbroke Hospital is a very big building with corridors and ramifications which, unless one knows them, cannot be traversed successfully without the assistance of a guide. The meeting was held in a huge hall somewhere in the depths.
On the way thither the visitor caught glimpses of spacious wards bright with flowers and peopled with patients who were obviously well looked after, and who were as obviously pleased and cheerful. Wednesday was visiting day at the hospital. Groups of visitors, all carrying flowers, were met at every turn."
[PB: "Wednesday was visiting day" — the regularity and formality of visiting hours is worth noting. Source: South Western Star, 21 November 1930. BNA link.]
[PB: The hospital's accident admissions were reported weekly in e.g. the South Western Star, giving a running picture of everyday hazards in the area. A typical week in June 1902:]
"During the week the following people have been admitted to the Bolingbroke Hospital suffering from injuries as the result of accidents — Albert Phillips (7), 42 Putney Bridge-road, Wandsworth, fractured thigh; William Palmer (12), 21 South-street, Wandsworth, broken leg; Charles Ladd (16), Summerstown, Earlsfield, shot wound in foot; Charles Ladd (19), 128 Cavendish-road, Balham, broken arm; Sidney Simmons (32), 39 Lockington-road, Battersea, severe bruising as a result of fall; George Alfred Hilton (6), 16 Wardley-street, Garratt-lane, Wandsworth, scalp wound and collapse.
All the patients are doing well with the exception of Hilton, who is likely to remain in a weak state for a couple of days. The lad Finchley, from Cabul-road, Battersea, who last week was admitted to the hospital suffering from severe internal injuries as the result of being crushed at Clapham Junction Wharf, and who underwent an operation last Friday, [is] progressing satisfactorily towards convalescence."
[PB: Note that these only refer to accident cases — there will have been other categories of admission besides. Worth checking whether this was a typical week or a busy one. Source: South Western Star, 20 June 1902. BNA link.]
Two years later, the numbers had grown sharply. In a single week in August 1904 the hospital treated 148 accident cases — an extraordinary figure for what had begun as a thirty-bed house-hospital:
"New accident cases to the number of 148 have been treated at Bolingbroke Hospital during the week. On Saturday John Tidy, a man living at 8 Hazelhurst-road, [was] admitted suffering from carbolic acid poisoning. He took the poison by mistake. He has been cured and discharged. Percy Lawrence, age one year and ten months, of 8 Stainforth-road, Battersea, was taken in the same day. He had swallowed a halfpenny. He is now under treatment as an out-patient. On Monday Annie Berringer, aged 40, of 23 Cairns-road, was admitted suffering from a broken leg."
[PB: 148 cases in a week is a remarkable total. Source: South Western Star, 19 August 1904. BNA link.]
[PB: The hospital's admissions records, as reported in the local press, offer a vivid cross-section of the risks of everyday life in late Victorian and Edwardian south London. A running list from the newspaper coverage — could be developed into proper prose:
Falls from ladders and buildings; burns and scalds; injuries from moving vehicles of all kinds; collisions with trams; being crushed by horses, carts, cabs, motorcycles and motor cars; attempted suicide by shooting or poisoning; industrial injuries. Some of the worst cases — often fatal — involved railwaymen, particularly shunters.]
The hospital served the heavy industrial district around Wandsworth and Battersea, and its accident wards regularly received men injured in the factories and yards nearby. One case from 1894 was grimly severe:
"In our issue of April 7th we recorded a melancholy accident to a manager of Orlando Jones' starch factory in York-road, where he was caught by the coat-tails in the machinery and one arm was torn off at the elbow and the other crushed considerably. He was removed to the Bolingbroke Hospital at Wandsworth Common, where both arms were amputated and the injuries to the ribs and left leg attended to. The latest information received shows that Mr. Govey is now making progress towards recovery, although at first life was despaired of."
[PB: Source: South Western Star, 21 April 1894. BNA link. Also: railway shunters appear frequently in the accident reports — some so severely injured that their families were reportedly prevented from viewing the bodies. Worth tracking these down and quoting one or two.]
The hospital also received cases from Wandsworth Common itself.
"ELTRINGHAM STREET MAN'S MISHAP
On Wednesday evening, while vaulting the iron railings surrounding Wandsworth Common, West Side, Maurice Pimm of 36 Eltringham Street, Wandsworth, slipped and cut his hand. He was taken by ambulance to Bolingbroke Hospital."
[PB: Source: South Western Star, 21 April 1939. BNA link.]
And this extraordinary story, covered in the Chronicles (January 2024):
"POISONED LOVERS
STRANGE STORY OF ATTEMPTED SUICIDE
Alice Allen, a good-looking girl of 16 … has parents who oppose her marriage with a youth named George Bastow. For this reason she and her lover resolved to die together. Providing themselves with a bottle, labelled "Spirits of Salts — Poison," they made their way to Wandsworth Common, where, sitting on a seat, they shared the contents.
A policeman found them there on the night of January 1st, ill and half-unconscious.
With assistance, he carried them to the Bolingbroke Hospital, where the young man is still lying in dangerous condition. The girl, who had admitted that they tried to poison themselves, was brought up yesterday at the South-Western Police court."
[PB: Source: Daily Mirror, 8 January 1907. BNA link. There is a lot more on this story in my January 2024 Chronicles: Love tragedy.]
Is it worth developing this material on the Hospital? Or is it too remote from the story of the House itself? It certainly could be full of human life, and therefore fascinating. What do people think?
[PB: Appendices follow… How are these appendices to be used? As sources of brief quotations? For background information? Inserted as box features within the main chapter? As a standalone collection of items separate from the main chapter?]