Note: the Medical Collection does not include any official records of this hospital. This includes any records relating to patient admissions, treatment and discharge. Some Hospital records are held by Manchester Archives and Local Studies, Central Library, St. Peter's Square, Manchester (ref. M363).
An incomplete set of annual reports, plus a report on the Hospital's work with TB patients, and material relating to Delamere Sanatorium.
In the 1850s, 12% of deaths in Manchester could be accounted for by tuberculosis. The need for a specialist hospital was evident, and in 1875 Dr Shepherd Fletcher and Dr Alexander Hodgkinson founded the Manchester Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Throat and Chest. The hospital had premises on St John's Street, Deansgate, with accommodation for 8 in-patients. It was 'practically the only hospital in the North of England devoted to the treatment of consumption.' (BMA). The hospital was small at first, but as TB gained public attention in the 1880s support for the hospital grew. In 1885, the St John's Street site was replaced by a new out-patient department on Hardman Street (enlarged in 1891) and a new in-patients hospital in Bowdon, Cheshire. In 1899, the Medical Officer of Health for Manchester, Dr J Niven, implemented a partial system of voluntary notification of tuberculosis. Partly as a result of this, the Hospital was dealing with ever increasing numbers of patients.
The new hospital at Bowdon had space for fifteen in-patients; additions in 1886 and 1896 brought the capacity to fifty. Additional space was still required and in 1905 a sanatorium at Delamere Forest was given to the Hospital by Sir William Crossley. This became known as the Crossley Sanatorium. In the early days, curable cases went to Crossley and Bowdon Sanatorium was used for more advanced cases. From 1912, the out-patients clinic on Hardman Street became the city's tuberculosis dispensary, illustrating the close cooperation of the hospital with the tuberculosis scheme of the Manchester Corporation. With the advent of the NHS, the Hardman Street clinic became the Manchester Ear Nose and Throat Hospital, part of the South Manchester Hospital Group. It closed in 1951. The Bowdon Sanatorium had changed its name in 1932 to St Anne's Home, but carried on only treating tuberculosis cases. In 1948 the home was no longer part of Manchester Consumption Hospital and began to specialise in ENT. In 1953 the Home changed its name to St Anne's Hospital. From the 1980s, St Anne's treated elderly patients with severe mental difficulties. In 1994 the Hospital became part of Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust. Crossley Sanatorium was passed to Liverpool Regional Hospital Board in 1948, merging with Liverpool Sanatorium which had been built on the adjoining site. It became known as Crossley Hospital before closing in 1990.
See Robert Price Davies, Baguley and Wythenshawe Hospitals: A History, (Manchester 2002), which has some general remarks on the work of TB hospitals in Manchester. Arthur Ransome's unpublished memoirSome great and good men and women I have known also has information of interest.
