WINWICK HOSPITAL

Acc 3492, 3807, 4972, 5015

In 1894, the Lancashire Asylums Board bought the Winwick Rectory Estate to provide accommodation for chronic lunatics. The asylum was formally opened in January 1902, although the first patients were received into Winwick Hall five years earlier, in 1897. In 1905 the Commissioners in Lunacy approved the asylum for the admission of acute, recent and curable as well as chronic cases. From May 1915 to October 1920, it was taken over by the War Office and renamed the Lord Derby War Hospital; more than 2000 patients were moved to other asylums. During the 1939-1945 war, an Emergency Medical Service hospital of 800 beds was erected on the site. With the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948, management passed from the Lancashire Mental Hospitals Board to the new Winwick and Newchurch Homes Hospital Management Committee which, in 1971, amalgamated with the Warrington and District Hospital Management Committee to form the Warrington Hospital Management Committee. In 1974, when this Committee was dissolved, the Hospital was managed by the Warrington District of Cheshire Area Health Authority, then from 1982, of Warrington District Health Authority. In 1983 it had 1715 beds for the treatment of mental illness.