User:DavidAnstiss/Joyce Green Hospital

Joyce Green Hospital was a large NHS hospital in North Dartford. Administratively part of the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, together with Guy's Hospital and King's College Hospital it provides the location of the King's College London School of Medicine.

The Joyce Green Hospital was erected by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1901-3. It was located at Long Reach near Dartford, near to the MAB's hospital ships complex which it was intended to replace. The ships (Endymion and Castalia) {{cite web|first=Debbie |last=Fryer|title=BACKGROUND HISTORY OF THE RIVER HOSPITALS JOYCE GREEN, LONG REACH AND ORCHARD HOSPITALS JOYCE GREEN’S CEMETARY AND GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE SMALLPOX VIRUS|url=http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.templehilltrust.org.uk/tht/assets/Enchanted-Woodland/Background-History-with-pics-v2.doc| were proving increasingly unsatisfactory: they had a high maintenance cost and were prone to fires; there were difficulties in preventing delirious smallpox patients throwing themselves overboard; hazards arose from bad weather and the possibility of collision with other ships; an increase in the number of smallpox beds was needed which was not possible on the existing ships.

In the autumn of 1901, after construction of the Joyce Green had begun, London suffered a sever outbreak of smallpox. Since the new hospital was nowhere near being able to take in patients, two temporary smallpox hospitals were erected in the vicinity. The Long Reach, which opened in February, 1902, was located on land immediately to the east of the Long Reach Pier buildings. The Orchard, opened later in 1902, was situated to the north-west of the Joyce Green site. A horse-drawn tramway for ambulances was erected to link the all the hospitals to the terminus of the river ambulance service at Long Reach Pier.

The hospital ships were closed in 1902 and sold for scrap in 1904

The Joyce Green, like the Orchard and Long Reach hospitals, was designed by the MAB's architects A & C Harston.

Following the general decline in smallpox cases after 1902, the Long Reach and Orchard hospitals were reserved for such patients. The Joyce Green took other infectious cases, with diphtheria and scarlet fever patients being admitted from 1907, and later taking measles and whooping-cough patients.

Dartford itself saw an increase in the number of smallpox victims as workmen, lodging locally, who were building the hospitals were affected by the disease.

In June, 1918, about 1,140 refugees from Russia arrived in England. As they had been in contact with smallpox, they were housed in isolation at the Joyce Green Hospital.

From 1919 to 1935, an intensive programme of shrub and tree planting took place around the hospital. Electric lighting arrived in 1926.

After 1930, control of the hospital passed to the London County Council. At the start of World War Two it became a general hospital as part of the Emergency Medical Scheme. From 1944 to 1946, part of the site was used as a Dutch military hospital.

In 1948, Joyce Green joined the newly inaugurated National Health Service and continued in operation until September 2000. The buildings have now all been demolished.

ref - http://www.workhouses.org.uk/MAB-JoyceGreen/

replaced by Darent Valley Hospital.