File RCHS/6 - Guide to Nurse Training at Wanstead Hospital

From Lost Hospitals of London https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/wanstead.html The Essex County Hospital opened in 1938 in a building originally erected in 1861 as the Merchant Seamen's Orphan Asylum. (Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, had laid the foundation stone.) In 1921 the orphans moved to Bearwood House in Wokingham and the Asylum building was bought by the Convent of the Good Shepherd as a refuge for women and girls. In 1937 Essex County Council bought the building and converted it into a hospital. The Hospital joined the NHS in 1948 as a general hospital with 202 beds. It had suffered considerable damage during the war and a proposal was made to develop a larger hospital on the 7 acre site. However, these plans came to naught. The war damage was repaired and by 1961 the Hospital had 195 beds. The maternity service was withdrawn in 1975 and the Hospital finally closed in 1986 with 188 beds. Services were transferred to Whipps Cross Hospital.

The hospital was part of the Forest Group School of Nursing, centred on Whipps Cross Hospital, training nurses for both the Register and the Roll.