Ongar District Cottage Hospital War Memorial Scheme

It is usually accepted that the Ongar Cottage Hospital was established exclusively by Dr Hackney in a bungalow at 67 Fyfield Road in September 1928, and that it was a totally separate entity from the War Memorial Hospital which did not open until 1933. Close examination of the minute book of the Ongar District Cottage Hospital War Memorial Scheme (ERO A/HW 4/1/2) shows that this account is not entirely correct.

The minute book begins in December 1926 with funds at nearly £4500. It was agreed that the ‘present site’ in Fyfield Road should be used for building a nursing or convalescent home at a cost not exceeding £1500, and that the site should be vested in nominated trustees who included two of the local GPs, Dr Ferguson and Dr Wilson. Messrs Pertwee and Howard, architects in Chelmsford, were to be employed to draw up plans for a convalescent home. Twelve months later, their finalised proposals were duly discussed by the committee. The estimated cost of construction was £2225.

Progress was very slow until November 1928 when there was a ‘long discussion’ about the newly opened cottage hospital. This event seems to have spurred the committee into action as, only 10 days later, they agreed to build a new hospital for about £2000 and to support the cottage hospital in the meanwhile. Five weeks later, the cost of the hospital project had risen to £3000, and it was agreed that during its construction the cottage hospital would be called ‘Ongar & District War Memorial Hospital’ and would be supported financially by the committee. On completion, the new hospital would take over all the equipment currently in the cottage hospital.

However, eleven months later nothing had happened. About £850 had been paid to support the cottage hospital, but Pertwee and Howard’s designs for the new building seem to have been abandoned, as a prize of 5 guineas was to be offered for the best design produced as a result of an advertisement in ‘The Builder’ of 6 December 1929. In February 1930 the committee considered about 50 submissions and proposals and chose a design by Mr J B Wise of Stratford. Something must have gone badly wrong at this point, as only a week later Mr Howard of Pertwee and Howard was invited to be the architect for the new hospital. By May, Howard’s plan had been costed at £7000 and he was instructed to reduce this to £3000. The modified plans, not surprisingly, were considered inadequate and lacked an operating theatre.

The impossible conundrum of adequate facilities and affordability continued to dog the committee for another ten months, but finally in March 1930 plans estimated to cost £3627 were agreed. The agreement must have been fragile as, only two months later, Dr Hackney resigned from the committee, having expressed strong disapproval of the proposed hospital which he believed was too small. In spite of this, the same meeting agreed the contract to construct the hospital with the Ongar builders F M Noble at the cost of £3307-14-8. However Dr Hackney’s resignation seems to have precipitated a major row, and there were several more resignations noted at the next and final meeting on 8 June 1931, on the grounds that ‘the hospital seemed to be for one particular man, and that the doctors would not work with other medical men’.

One suspects a clash of personalities (not unusual amongst independent-minded individuals like GPs) but no subsequent minute books have survived to elucidate this. The fact that the last entry left many blank pages in this minute book would suggest that a new committee was constituted in order to administer the War Memorial fund and to oversee the building of the new hospital.

It is interesting to compare the sequence of events revealed by the minute book with the usually accepted version that Dr Hackney, dissatisfied with both the design and the lack of progress, branched out on his own in 1928 and had nothing further to do with the War Memorial project. On the contrary he remained involved until 1931, and his own cottage hospital was partly funded from the War Memorial fund, probably until the new hospital opened in 1933. Also he had agreed to the transfer of equipment from his hospital to the new one when it opened. As a keen surgeon, he was probably correct in believing that the new hospital would be too small. There is no doubt that the new operating theatre was woefully inadequate and within a few years it required an extension to provide a proper scrub and sterilising room. Also his was by no means the only dissenting voice, as others were clearly unhappy about the committee being dominated by certain (unnamed) individuals. It is a shame that subsequent minute books have not survived to reveal more of the story, but perhaps they were victims of the wartime drive for scrap paper.