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Photographs from an album by EDD Davis

Scanned and annotated by Laurence Garey, 2014

Charing Cross Hospital was founded as such in 1827 by renaming the former West London Infirmary. A new building was opened in 1834, just off the Strand in the heart of London.

It included its own Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, part of the University of London. In 1973 the central London site was vacated, although it still exists as Charing Cross Police Station, and the hospital moved to the present building in Fulham, retaining its former name. The medical school, merged with that of the Westminster Hospital, finally became part of Imperial College.

When I left the Charing Cross Hospital site at Fulham in 2000 the merger to form the Imperial College School of Medicine had resulted in the disappearance of the preclinical departments as such. The library of the Department of Anatomy was closed, but a number of books were rescued. I I found an old, red photograph album with a torn cover and several pages detached, containing a number of obviously very old photographs. From the first page it was clear that it had been compiled by newly qualified surgeon EDD Davis and contained photographs of resident medical staff, and nursing and other staff, at Charing Cross Hospital between 1902 and 1906.

It appears from the change in handwriting from his signature “EDD Davis” to “E.D. DAVIS” that he may have compiled the album quite early in his career, and had then annotated it some years later.

Edward David Darelan Davis (1880-1976) was a clinical student at Charing Cross from 1900, after beginning his studies in Cardiff. He qualified in medicine and dentistry in 1903. He was an anatomy demonstrator and surgeon in the Nose, Throat and Ear Department, as well as consulting for several other hospitals, including the Royal Dental, Great Ormond Street, and Mount Vernon. He was well liked and popular with his colleagues, and actively followed events in his field right up to his death at age 95. For details, see his obituary in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) (page 776). He appears in several of the following photographs and, much later in his career, in the final “Postcard”.

His photographs show the various wards and operating theatres at the beginning of the twentieth century, but also some sporting scenes, views of the Davis family and photographs of patients to illustrate certain pathologies. I shall concentrate on the pictures of the day-to-day scenes in the hospital, and try to identify the personnel, and give Internet references as far as possible. I should be most grateful if any readers spot mistakes on my part or can add further details about the people depicted (l.garey@gmail.com).

We are looking across the Thames at what became the site of the Festival of Britain in 1951, and is now the South Bank Site, between the old Waterloo and Hungerford bridges. In the centre of the site is the Shot Tower, demolished soon after the Festival of Britain. On the north bank, at the extreme left, we see the massive tower of the Hotel Cecil, built in the 1890s and demolished in 1930 to make way for Shell Mex House. The Maltese Cross in the foreground was, I believe, rescued in 1973 and taken to the Fulham site where it became the emblem of the student body.

James Stanley Newton Boyd (1856-1916), was born in Shrewsbury and studied at University College Hospital, where he later taught anatomy and surgery. He moved to Charing Cross in 1882, and was Senior Surgeon from 1905 to 1916. He also taught anatomy and pathology, and became Dean. In addition he worked at the Brompton Hospital, and in the First World War was a Lieutenant Colonel in the RAMC. He was a member of the Court of Examiners and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons. http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/biogs/E000943b.htm

We also see Boyd operating in photo 23.

Sir Harold Arthur Thomas Fairbank (1879-1961) qualified at Charing Cross in 1898. After service in the South African War he entered Great Ormond Street Hospital, and also became orthopaedic surgeon at Charing Cross. He served in the RAMC in the First World War, before returning to run the orthopaedic department at King’s College Hospital. See also photo 7. http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/biogs/E005356b.htm

Mr and Mrs Sprawson: Evelyn Charles Sprawson was a dental surgeon at the London Hospital and co-authored “Dental Surgery and Pathology” with Charing Cross dental surgeon James Frank Colyer (http://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/biogs/E004969b.htm).

Mrs Sprawson is the night nurse Knox we see in photo 17, and also in another operating theatre (photo 16). Indeed Evelyn Charles Sprawson, dental surgeon, was born in 1881 in Kingston and died at Charing Cross Hospital in 1955: he married Evelyn Jessie Knox, born 1881 in Leamington, in 1907 in Finchley. See: sprawson census marriage

Sister Wood-Hill also appears in photo 16.

Nurse Lillian Hollings later become Sister. We see her in photo 24. nursing