BRIXTON DISTRICT NURSING ASSOCIATION

These papers are those of A W Scott, JP., who was connected with the Association for many years as its solicitor, a committee member and finally as chairman. Together with papers relating to the Brixton Dispensary with which he was also involved, they were deposited in 1975 by Mrs Stedman, at that time secretary of the Dispensary's successor, the Brixton Sick Poor Fund. Nothing earlier than 1933 appears to have survived, and many of these papers are concerned with the administration of the service after 1948 and with the subsequent takeover by Lambeth and the winding up of the Association. They include material relating to the Camberwell District Nursing Association, with which Brixton was closely linked after 1965. The Brixton Dispensary papers have been separated as far as possible, but Scott's links with both organisations, and particularly the correspondence on the transfer of Association funds to the Dispensary, have made some overlap inevitable, and both should be consulted. (See IV/142 for Dispensary papers).

<p>6 Photographs of interior of 47 Tulse Hill (Nurses Home) [c.1953]. removed. (SP16/6/BRI.N.1-6)</p>

The Association was founded in October 1902 to provide professional nursing attendance for the sick poor of Brixton in their own homes. It was privately funded and run by a voluntary committee. The initial staff of one nurse was soon increased to two, and Lady Tate provided funds for a third in memory of her husband, Sir Henry Tate. In 1906 she also presented 47 Tulse Hill to the Queen's Institute of District Nursing for use as a nurses' home, and this became the Association's home for the remainder of its existence. An annexe was opened in 1953. In January 1928 a deed amalagamating the Association with the Brixton Dispensary was drawn up, but curiously never seems to have taken effect, and 10 years later the link was formally severed. However, the Association was by this time in debt to the Dispensary, and remained so until 1943. Its finances were increasingly insecure, an attempt in the early 1930s to set up a provident scheme being far from successful, but it received grants from Lambeth Council for visits to infectious cases, and some LCC funding. In 1948 the LCC became responsible for district nursing, but it exercised its responsibility through the agency of the various district associations, meeting an increasing proportion - eventually 93% - of their costs. When the newly-created London Boroughs became responsible for the service in 1965 they continued the arrangement. However, the various associations that operated in Lambeth and its neighbours adjusted their boundaries to those of the new boroughs, and in Lambeth a joint committee of the Camberwell, Brixton and Norwood Associations was set up. (The Camberwell Association was subsequently renamed the Mary Minet, after its founder). Brixton found it increasingly difficult to raise 7% of its costs and in 1967 the Mary Minet took over its accounts and administration, although the nurses' home at 47 Tulse Hill was retained. Lambeth finally took the service over in April 1971, and the money in the Private Fund, set up to provide amenities for nurses, was handed over to the Brixton Dispensary.