Sunday 27 October 2013

A Wartime Hospital





I was born at St Mary’s Hospital yet my place of birth is recorded as Macclesfield which was where my parents lived at the time.

A little research on the internet has given me some background to the story. Faced with the possibility of air raids, the St Mary’s Hospital Board chose to close their City Centre maternity wards. Collar House in Prestbury was owned by the Moseley family who were then living in Wales and in 1939 was rented by the hospital as an annexe. This was a large house with extensive grounds. It had its own water and electricity supply as well as a laundry. It was converted to hold 45 beds and had maternity wards and nurseries as well as a theatre, dispensary and accommodation for 30 staff. Nearby Prestbury Hall and Adlington Hall were also to become hospitals. St Mary’s remained at Collar House until 1952 when the maternity wards returned to the City. During those 13 years, more than 14000 children were born at the three Prestbury hospitals. Originally a farm, Collar house dates from before 1780 and has been occupied by a number of different families.

Collar House, much extended is now occupied by Beaumont Nursing Home.

A book by Mary E. Roberts has been published on the history of Collar House and is available from Waterstones.



The pages of the Manchester Guardian add a little more to the history of this wartime annex of St Mary’s Hospital.The Guardian of 9th December 1939 reported that Collar House had received its first maternity cases that Monday. It was described as a pleasant Cheshire mansion.  The board of St Mary’s had decided to evacuate cases from a “dangerous” to a “safe” location after some deliberation. “Suitable cases” were to be transferred to Prestbury by ambulance leaving more complex cases for treatment at Whitworth Park Hospital.
At the outbreak of war the board appointed Miss D. H. Stuart to Matron-in-Charge. Fifty staff with were initially transferred to Blackpool together with medical equipment. It was soon realised that expectant mothers were unhappy to leave their neighbourhood and the scheme was phased out.
In January 1945, The Guardian reported that the Prestbury Hall Maternity Home had been due to close in a short time. The Manchester Public Health Committee, faced with an acute demand for maternity beds had decided that St Mary’s Hospitals should continue running this home for a short time in conjunction with Collar House.
In March 1946, The Guardian reported that the Public Health Committee had recommended the purchase of Collar House for the sum of £9750. The cost of running the home was £12732 and annual income from patients £4500 leaving a deficit of £8232. The hospital had a capacity for 800 patients a year.
In December 1952 the Ministry of Health had decided to return Collar House to its owner. This would result in a loss of 40 beds. St Mary’s had 82 beds at Whitworth Street and this reduction would threaten its position as a teaching hospital.
In June 1957, a bus crashed in London’s Oxford Street, killing 7 and injuring a further 12. Among the fatalities was Miss Forbes-Graham, matron of Collar House Hospital who was on a week’s leave.  She had worked at St. Mary’s since 1929 and was involved in the evacuatio of children from Manchester in 1939.  She became Sister-in-Charge of Collar House Hospital and continued as Matron when the hospital transferred to the Macclesfield Hospital Group in 1952.


Perhaps that 1946 purchase did not proceed for the 1952 article suggests that it was still being rented, although Collar House remained as a hospital into the 1970’s as part of the Macclesfield Hospital.
I have not seen any reference to any annex of St Mary’s in North Manchester other than the Blackpool episode.  Collar House was used as a convalescent home in the 60’s. I have not as yet found any reference to any other use that Macclesfield Hospital found for the building.
There are several references to Collar House on the internet. One website states categorically that this had been the home of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. Not very well researched for the Moseley family of Prestbury did not even spell their name in the same way as Sir Oswald.



31 comments:

  1. My sister was born there in 1950. We passed through Prestbury today but didn't see the old hospital. And we've just seen this blog- interesting!

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  2. My mother was born here also, October 1946. This is the first piece I have found which sheds any light on my mothers birthplace! So happy to have stumbled across it.

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  3. I was born there in 1942.

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  4. I was born in 1944 in Adlington Hall

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  5. I was born there in January 1952

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  6. So many people have responded to this article and links to it on Social Media. Pleased that it has been so well received.

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  7. My mother Margaret Bradley (Barron) worked here as an SRN, SCM nurse during the war after being evacuated from StMary’s to Conishead Priory and then moving to Collar House because she was from Prestbury. My elder brother and elder sister were both born at Collar House in 1944 & 1946. My mother also did night duty at Collar House in the 1970s.

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    1. I was born there in August 1943 .....also baptised as was very ill

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  8. Trying to get a copy of the book but can't find one anywhere!!

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    1. It appears to be out of print. Probably the only hope is to find a second hand copy - keep checking ebay

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  9. I was born at Collar House in January 1946 my my birth name Pauline Joan Dillon.
    Parents Frank and Joan Dillon.
    Thankyou this is good to read about Colllar House. My mother told me it was a grand house with beautiful gardens.

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  10. I was born in Prestbury in January 1946.My father told me how he used to struggle through the snow to visit on a Sunday.

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  11. I was born there in November 1943

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  12. I haven’t any word to appreciate this post.....Really i am impressed from this post....the person who create this post it was a great human..thanks for shared this with us. kimscuddles.com

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  13. My late mother told me that I was born there in January 1953, although all the record I can find show that it closed in 1952. So, I guess I must have been one of the very last babies born there.

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  14. I was born there in 1948 , my mother always told me it was Oswald Mosley’s house originally.

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    1. My mother was born there in 46, and she told me it had been owned by Oswald Mosley too. You're not alone lol

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    2. Definitely not Oswald Mosley. It was the home of an entirely different Mosley family.

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  15. Hello Linda. There are many stories of Mosley having lived in various homes in and around Manchester. These however, all refer to a different branch of the Mosley family who were descendants of Sir Nicholas Mosley, who in the 16th century was lord of the Manor of Mabchester. Oswald Mosley's family home was in Staffordshire.

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  16. My family moved to Prestbury in 1927 when my grandfather took up his position as maintenance electrician at collar house for the Moseley family. My grandmother later on took up the position of cook at collar house once it had become a hospital. They set up home in one of the tied cottages opposite the hospital and lived there right up until 1965 when my grandfather died.
    My mother (now deceased) who grew up in this cottage, remembers the matron who she referred to as Nurse Graham as she used to do dress alterations for her. One such dress alteration would never be tried on as the matron was killed in that road traffic accident just days before the planned fitting..... her death was a huge shock to the local community and, as I recall, made the national news.
    For my part, as a child, I had many exciting adventures exploring the disused Collar House farm outbuildings and coach house buildings.

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    1. Thanks for your story Lindsey. Your grandmother would have been at Collar House when I was born. She may have even seen (or heard) me !

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  17. I was born here in January 1951.
    I have a photo somewhere of the house back then.
    Will look for it and post it on here if I find it.

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    1. Would very much love to see that photo. We're you able to find it?

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  18. I've looked everywhere for this book but had no joy. I was born at Prestbury Hall in January 1950, and my mum always said it was an annexe for St Mary's at the time. She also said she was put in the back of a taxi to go there, with a Midwife telling her what to do to stop me from being born! Until I started looking for the book, I'd never heard of Collar House. Glenis

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  19. I was born here in April 1952. Coming from the inner city of Manchester my mother regarded it as quite a “coup” to have given birth in Prestbury!

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    1. Having been raised in West London, I was always proud to have a birth certificate that proved that I was a true Northerner. I escaped back to Cheshire as soon as I was able to !

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    2. I was also born there in 1952 and my mother was similarly proud as we lived in Hulme, later regarded as a slum!

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  20. I was born in Collar House in December 1948. My mother had been sent there instead of St Mary’s. She was then living in Manchester but was born in Macclesfield in 1928. She had been evacuated from Manchester to Prestbury during the war to live with an aunt. In 1968 I moved to the area from Manchester as my husband started working there. In 2002 my son got married at St Michaels church in the village. At the wedding my father made reference to the fact that life seemed to bring us all back to the village for important events.

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  21. I was born at Collar house Mansion in January 1946. Aneurin Bevan signed my birth certificate. P.D
    My parents were living in Macclesfield at the time My plus mother says oh you're Lucky solver spoon-fed.
    Best wishes to everyone born at Collar House Mansion County of Chester at the time plus beautiful gardens over the years.
    Two years before the birth of the NHS.

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  22. Very interesting comments above as I was also born in Collar House on 8th May 1945, the day the 2nd World War in Europe officially ended. I was told that the nurses hung red, white and blue bandages round my cot. Red and blue bandages had been dipped in ink.

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