BOOK REVIEW-Endell Street. The Women who ran Britain’s Trailblazing Military Hospital

Based on research from numerous sources and woven together into an engaging narrative, this former Radio Four ‘Book of the Week’ by Wendy Moore tells the story of the Endell Street Military Hospital – the only hospital in England ever to be run and staffed entirely by women, located in the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields.

Introducing Flora Murray and Louisa Garrett-Anderson (partners in work and in their personal lives) who met as militant suffragettes and went on to lead the hospital, the first part of the book charts their experience running a military hospital for the French Red Cross - first in Paris, then a second hospital in Wimereux near Boulogne. They had offered their services to the British military authorities, but a combination of their militant past and attitudes towards women doctors at the time, meant their proposal was rejected. Until the casualties started to mount and their reputation for running an efficient operation in France grew; then they were persuaded to return to London and to open a hospital on the site of the former St Giles Workhouse at the top of Endell Street (today the site is a residential block known as Dyott Court).

The hospital was not named after St Giles (Flora and Louisa rejecting male names); each ward was named after a female saint. With precious little support from the military authorities they set to work repairing the building and preparing to open the wards. The rest of the book tells the stories of some of the staff and the patients through the rest of the war and the devastating Spanish Influenza outbreak that followed it. The text is illustrated with several black and white photographs.  

The book describes in detail the innovations in healthcare made at Endell Street in both patient care and the use of antiseptics. But, unlike other history books of the hospital, it also describes the personalities who worked there and their inter-relationships and describes something of the ongoing battle for recognition of the female staff in a male dominated world. 

After witnessing an operation underway in the theatre, one army delegation asked “who really does the surgery?” - thinking a man must be hidden somewhere in the room directing the procedure. 

The spectacle of the “women’s hospital” became a magnet for tourists and the media - both in France and in England (I had not imagined that civilians would be able to travel from England to France at the height of war). The staff not only dealing with up to 30 operations a day and 800 new admissions a month - most arriving in the small hours meaning staff were fatigued - but by day the unannounced parties of officials and the press keen to get a glimpse inside this ‘novelty’.

Class divides seemed to unite both men and women. Patients at the hospital tending to be lower class, lower ranking soldiers (officers felt it beneath them to be treated by women). Volunteer nurses and visitors drawn from the titled ladies of the UK and the USA who arrived at the hospital motivated but with no practical experience, had to learn to take orders from the often lower class but professionally trained nurses. 

The book concludes by highlighting the ongoing battle faced by the women of the Endell Street hospital after the war - those wishing to continue their important work being accused of taking veterans jobs. 

Wendy Moore’s text is not a dry history of this important part of our parish history, but an engaging story which is hard to put down. I highly recommend it. 

Links

Endell Street. The Women who ran Britain’s Trailblazing Military Hospital by Wendy Moore was published by Atlantic Books in 2021.

If you are interested in reading more about this history of the St Giles area, we highly recommend our recent publication by Andrew Saint and Rebecca Preston - the most comprehensive account of any London neighbourhood published to date!  Available from the publishers for £27.50 plus P&P or from the church office for £25.

You may also be interested in ‘The Blackbirds of St Giles’ by Lila Cain, to be published by Simon & Schuster in January 2025 (available now to pre-order). The novel tells the story of the Blackbirds of St Giles - former slaves who fought with the British in the American War of Independence many of whom ended up as residents of the St Giles Rookeries. I describe something of their lives in this sermon.