| Description | Please note this collection contains discriminatory, inaccurate and outdated language which may cause offence.
The records consist mainly of patient records, some of which date from the opening of the hospital, to circa 1960, however some of the records only go up to the mid 1930s. There is also a large number of photographs of the hospital, patients and staff. |
| AdminHistory | Birmingham Borough Council adopted the 1845 Act for the care and treatment of lunatics and proceeded to purchase and build on farmland at Winson Green, to provide an asylum (known as All Saints Asylum), which came into use in June 1850. In the following years it became apparent that more accommodation was required for patients, particularly for the chronically ill, and in 1876, a site of 151 acres at Rubery was purchased, to ease the overcrowding in All Saints and the expense of sending paupers to other local authority asylums. The hospital was to be mainly for the seriously ill patients of the imbecile class, for whom there was very little provision.
The architects Martin and Chamberlain were commissioned to build Rubery Hill Hospital, and it opened on 4 January 1882. There was accommodation for over 600 patients together with a library and administrative buildings and provision for outdoor exercise, farming and gardening. Extensions were made to the Hospital in 1893-5 and in 1887 the Holly Moor estate was purchased, and a further hospital built in 1900-1905 [these records can be found in HC HO]. During the First World War the Hospital was used as a war hospital, forming the 2nd Birmingham War Hospital, with all the patients being transferred to either All Saints or other hospitals in Birmingham. During the later stages of the war Rubery Hill was a specialist Orthopaedic Hospital. The 2nd War Hospital closed in 1920, and the normal operations of the hospital recommenced.
Following the Second World War Rubery Hill Hospital and Hollymoor Hospital were administratively amalgamated as part of the No. 6 (Rubery) Group of Hospitals until they were reorganised in 1962. Joint management minutes and the minutes of various sub-committees can be found at HC HO/1/1/1-4.
Rubery Hill Hospital closed in 1995 and most of the buildings were subsequently demolished. |