Association of Friends of the Cameron Hospital Dinner, Whist Drive and Dance 1939. To take place in the Co-op Cafe, Stockton Street.

Cameron Hospital.

Cameron Hospital is usually remembered as a women’s hospital, but in fact it was built and equipped in 1905 as a general hospital, at a cost of £20,400.

It was a gift to the town by the Cameron Family and when it opened it provided 40 beds in one female and one male ward, and an operating theatre. A 20 bedded children’s ward was opened in 1931 as well as a veranda for the south ward. It became a training hospital in 1933.

In 1955 the focus of the hospital was altered and it became the Cameron Maternity and Gynaecology Hospital.

The hospital over the years became renowned for pioneering advances in medical and surgical techniques. The region’s first GIFT baby was a success story for consultant Hugh Dawson and his team in 1989 and the Cameron team also successfully carried out IVF on the N.H.S. in 1990 - only the second hospital in the country to be successful with an N.H.S. patient.

Cameron Hospital closed to the public in 1991 when the team was transferred to the General Hospital, Hartlepool.   

View of Cameron Hospital from 1925. Another similar picture states that this is the operating theatre though it looks a little sparse for this to be true.

The yellow Mk.III Ford escort on the left would suggest this view of Cameron Hospital was probably taken sometime in the 1980s or 1990s.

A view of Cameron Hospital taken in April 1991.

A view of Cameron Hospital taken in April 1991.

A view of Cameron Hospital from Tunstall Grove, taken in April 1991.

Cameron Hospital, Wooler Road, Hartlepool

A view of Cameron Hospital probably taken in 1905/06, as the the pavement and road in front of the building have yet to be constructed.

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A shot of Cameron Hospital, Serpentine Road, Hartlepool, from the air. The building is almost centre to the picture.

A view of Cameron Hospital taken in the early 1900s, but before 1908.

John William Cameron was born in 1841 in Kirkby Stephen, Lancashire, although his family was of Scottish origin.

Before he came to West Hartlepool as a young man he had served his apprenticeship in the Brewery trade in Barnard Castle. It was also during his time at Barnard Castle that he became interested in things military and before he came to West Hartlepool he had been 5 years in the Volunteer Rifle Corps there. This interest he was to develop a great deal further in his new home.

He moved to West Hartlepool in 1865, at the age of 24 years to become head brewer at the Lion Brewery. The Brewery had been set up in 1852 when William Waldon bought up the land to build on. He was a newcomer to West Hartlepool, as were all the important figures in the early days. Waldon was elected as a Town Improvement Commissioner to serve on the first Board running the new town but he died before its first meeting, on 5^th September 1854.

Waldon’s widow then ran the business until the eldest son was of age, in the period before Cameron’s arrival. William Waldon Junior does not seem to have been interested in the brewing business and he died young in 1872, after which Cameron agreed with the trustees to take over the business on a 21-year lease. He soon embarked on a 10-year programme of building and enlarging the premises, buying up more land near Stockton Street.

In 1893 he bought the brewery outright and made the business into a Limited Company. He then embarked on absorbing nearby competitors; he bought up Nixey, Coleclough & Baxter on the Headland and M. Rickinson & Company by 1895, so that he doubled his tied houses from 50 to 103.

His involvement in philanthropy and public works was extensive and his military activities also took much of his energy. He joined the Artillery Volunteers on coming to West Hartlepool and was a Sub-Lieutenant by 1871. By 1874 he had become Captain and in 1881 he became commander of the town’s Corps. In 1885 the Rifle & Artillery Volunteers amalgamated and he became Lieutenant Colonel. The 4^th Durham Volunteers had a good reputation due to their record in National Shooting competitions and their smart turn out at local civic occasions.

His political career led to his being prominent in the history of the new town. In 1873 he was elected a Town Commissioner and he was to be on the Board for 14 years. Although he only became the chairman in 1886 it was in this period that the Town gained its Charter of Incorporation, largely due to his efforts.

At the first Municipal Elections he came top of the poll and was elected an Alderman, he did not become Mayor until 1889, letting Alderman William Gray and George Pyman take precedence. His brewery’s attractive head office “Greenbank” was the site of Stranton’s celebrations in 1887, the year of Victoria’s Jubilee and West Hartlepool’s Charter.

His last civic act was to offer the statue of the town’s founder, Ralph Ward Jackson, to West Hartlepool, in 1895. He wished it to be unveiled at the top of Church Street, where it stands today, and that it be unveiled in 1897, the 50^th anniversary year of the opening of the West Dock. He himself died before the ceremony in 1896. Perhaps a more important monument to him was the Cameron Hospital, presented to the town by his family.

This photograph shows Cameron's Hospital Children's Ward in 1932, a year after the department had opened. In that year an appeal had been launched by hospital president Sir William Gray, for funding because of unemployment in the town. The boy in the centre who had just had a mastoid operation was Harry Andrews who was also asked to 'fake' a broken leg and sore head and was shown sporting plaster cast, crutches and bandages in the highly successful appeal booklet. (see George Colley's Hartlepool Portrait book)

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People enjoying table football at Christmas in the early 1950s. Judging by the patient in bed to the left, it appears to be on a female ward. Possibly Pools players watching ? Does anyone know?

A Cameron's Hospital patient is being presented with a Ladybird book about Queen Elizabeth in 1953.

Tim Evans from Bath has informed us that he believes the gentleman in the photograph to be Councillor Bill Coward. 

Hospital operating theatre along with staff and a patient. Probably Camerons.

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A view of Cameron Hospital car park, sometime in the 1980s, with Serpentine Road looking very slippery!

This photograph shows a group of people in the grounds of Cameron's Hospital circa 1920. Two of the men appear to be in Police uniform. 

Taken well before 1955 when the hospital became one for midwifery and gyneaocology as this is a men's ward.

Three nurses on the steps of Cameron's Hospital.

Nurses sitting outside on the veranda at Cameron Hospital, Hartlepool.

Probably in the 1950s, the nurse on the right is Joan Hamerski (nee Bolton). The lodge behind the nurses still exists although the hospital on the left has made way for a housing development.

In the background are the houses in Hart Lane now obscured from this angle by the bungalows on Serpentine Bank.

Probably taken inside the hospital in the 1950s. Joan Bolton is second from right.

Operating Theatre circa 1920 Cameron Hospital.

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Not dated or named

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Taking tea in the Matron's room at Cameron's Hospital in 1921.