Plunging into better health

7:39am Tuesday 1st July 2008

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Accidents in the railway works were an everyday occurrence.

A gravestone in St Mark's churchyard records the death of 19-year-old Frederick James Tucker "killed by burst boiler at Swindon works" on June 18 1855.

A decade later and safety precautions had seemingly improved little.

Robert Hanks, 71, a fitter at the works, was crushed to death when a truck he was working under collapsed on top of him.

By the end of the 1860s the pressing need in the railway community was for a hospital.

The armoury and drill hall, built earlier in the decade for the XI Wiltshire Volunteer Rifle Corps, was selected as suitable for conversion into a cottage hospital.

Locomotive Carriage and Wagon Superintendent Joseph Armstrong proposed that the GWR Company pay for the conversion of the property and that additional costs be met through members' subscriptions and fundraising.

Sir Daniel Gooch donated £1,000, a sum matched by the men.

The hospital opened in December 1871 with one four bedded ward, an operating room and a room for post-mortem examinations.

The cottage on the west side of the hospital became a dispensary with accommodation above for the dispenser.

The 1881 census records Mary A Jennings, the matron, living at 44 Taunton Street, and John Tod, the dispenser, living at number 45.

The report to the Medical Fund Committee made by doctors Swinhoe, Howse and Bromley on January 12, 1886 recorded a total of 30 patients admitted during the previous 12 months.

Six had died, 20 had been discharged with one under treatment but "doing well".

Details of the men's accidents give an indication of the dangerous conditions in which they worked.

Charles Hill, 45, a carriage lifter, fractured his ribs and shoulders, spending 12 weeks in hospital.

George Turnbull, 33, a chargehand, suffered a fractured skull and died three days later.

By 1894 the incidents dealt with in the hospital were many and varied. Numerous eye injuries occurred which were usually referred to London hospitals.

The hospital register records that on October 3, 1894 "3 glasses of brandy for men & one of porter" were given to those who had witnessed the death of 75-year old William Clark Prizys "killed at work".

The hospital was absorbed into the NHS in 1948 and closed in 1960, shortly after the first phase of the Princess Margaret Hospital opened on Okus Road.

Plans for the Medical Fund flagship building, Milton Road Baths, had been in the pipeline for a number of years.

The committee had paid £999 for a plot of Rolleston estate land when it came on the market in 1885 but it was another six years before construction began.

The red brick building was designed by Swindon architect JJ Smith at a cost of £10,000.

Milton Road Baths were built in 1891 and, when it opened the following year, it soon became the hub of the medical fund activities.

Keeping up with the times, the Medical Fund committee installed both Turkish and Russian baths.

With dry air heated rooms the Victorian Turkish baths had more in common with ancient Roman baths.

A Turkish bath, followed by a full body wash and massage, was seen as being "of great value as a sanitary and cleansing agent".

The Russian baths were a vapour bath created by throwing water on hot stones, followed by a massage that involved being hit with a besom of birch twigs.

Central to the building were the two swimming pools. The larger one, reserved for men, could be covered and used for dances and concerts. The smaller pool was for the use of women and children.