Records of West Hill Hospital

This collection comprises an ms register of midwives undertaking district training under the jurisdiction of West Hill Hospital in Dartford (September 1954- June 1963), recording the name, age and address of each student, as well as details of their previous training and examination results, together with another ms register of applications for training in midwifery at West Hill Hospital (23 April 1979-November 1988), listing the names of each candidate, whether references were sent for and received, whether they were called for interviewed, the date of interview and if they were offered and accepted a place on the course, also including tables of statistics on the number of enquiries and applications received.

West Hill Hospital originated from the Dartford Workhouse, which was established in 1729. By 1830 the cost of poor relief had risen so much that smaller workhouses were amalgamated into one big Union Workhouse. The workhouse buildings became known as the King Edward Hospital in 1913 and were administered by the Local Government Board. In 1930 the control of the hospital passed to the Ministry of Health and Kent County Hospital. The hospital subsequently was renamed as the County Hospital Dartford in 1935. With the inception of the National Health Service in 1948 the hospital administration changed to the South East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board and the name changed to West Hill Hospital.

Access restrictions may apply if material includes personal information of living individuals. All other records are open to research by appointment, Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm. For further information about accessing the collection and visiting the reading room, please contact: archives@rcog.co.uk

There is no record of the date or source of acquisition before the collection was deposited at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in May 2011.

Catalogued by Clare Sexton, Project Archivist in accordance with ISAD(G).

Further details of the contents of this material are available on request.

If you wish to reproduce this material, apply via the College Archivist: archives@rcog.co.uk

This collection was originally deposited at the Royal College of Midwives. It is now held under the terms of a service level collection care agreement at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.