In early centuries Brentford made provision for both the
spiritual and physical needs of travellers crossing the
River Brent. The church of St Lawrence already in
existence by the late 13th century had a hospital added
to it. Another chapel had been built in New Brentford
before 1372 and a hospital was added to this in 1393.
This hospital, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St Anne,
her mother, and St Louis catered for poor travellers
and pilgrims In 1446, Master John Somerset, physician
and chaplain to Henry VI, founded the hospital of the
Virgin Mary and the Nine Orders of Holy Angels to
accompany the Chapel of All Angels which he had built
previously for 'nine poor men, weak or impotent, to
wit blind, lame or withered', This stood on the
western side of Brentford Bridge and was associated
with Syon Monastery.
The best way of controlling infection was to put the
afflicted in a place of isolation. In November 1665
when the plague was raging in Brentford St Lawrence's
Vestry allocated £20 towards building a'pest-house'.
This no doubt, didn't last very long and during the
19th century the local medical officers pleaded for
a separate isolation hospital for infectious diseases.
In 1877 there were plans to build such a hospital jointly
with Ealing but this doesn't seem to have materialised.
A house on the Ham was rented (and an iron building
added to increase the space) while the Brentford
Sanatorium was built next to the Brentford Sewage
Works in Clayponds Lane. This was officially opened
in January 1892. In 1921 it was annexed to the Ealing
Isolation Hospital in South Ealing Rd (later a branch
of the King Edward Memorial Hospital). While the rich
made use of qualified medical practitioners, ordinary
folk relied more on the cheaper apothecaries. The New
Brentford Vestry did, though, pay out one shilling in
1717 for Dr Bethune to bleed the sickly son of the
Beadle. Dr James Bethune (1693-1767) practised in
Brentford for 50 years and according to his gravestone
was dearly loved in the community. Dispensaries,
places to which the poor could go for medical treatment
and medicines, and supported by donations from the more
affluent, began to be set up in the late 18th century.
A dispensary was founded in a rented room opposite
St Lawrence's church in 1818. It functioned until 1869,
after which treatment was available at the surgery of
the medical officer appointed for a year, or if necessary
in the patient's own home, until the dispensary transferred
to the cottage hospital in 1893.
The public-spirited citizens of Brentford had been
accumulating funds for setting up their own cottage hospital
for some 20 years. In 1893 Edward John Stracey Clitherow
leased Marlborough House nos 24 and 26 the butts for use
as a hospital. It had six beds and accommodation for
nurses who visited people in their homes. In 1902 the
freehold of the property was acquired and the hospital
was operational until 1928 when a new hospital was put
up in Boston Manor Rd. This closed in 1977 when it became
an old people's home. The residents here were moved out
in 1993 and the building demolished and replaced by the
present Health Centre which opened in 1996.
In 1938 a Health centre and Juvenile Employment Bureau
had been open in a new building called Alexandra House
in Brentford High Street. This closed in 1996 when the
new health centre was opened Alexandra House is now the
Community Resources Centre and is a Grade II listed
building, Nikolaus Pevsner's Building of London describes
it as 'Low brick in the Dudok manner, popular in the 1930s
for progressive social buildings by the Middlesex County Council.
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Last Updated: 21st NOVEMBER 2005
