RECORDS OF CHASE FARM HOSPITAL (FORMERLY CHASE FARM SCHOOLS) THE RIDGEWAY, ENFIELD

<span class="wrapper"><p>For further information see:-</p> <p>Records of Edmonton Board of Guardians (BG/E)</p> <p>Annual reports of the Medical Officer of Health for Middlesex 1930-1937 (History Library)</p> <p>Middlesex County Council: Minutes of the Public Health Committee and its Northern Hospitals and Institutions Sub-Committee 1930-1948</p> <p>Middlesex County Council Children's Department. Registers of children and old ladies at Chase Farm 1887-1953 (MCC/CH/REG 3-22)</p> <p>King's Fund reports and papers 1953-1966 (A/KE/735/19/1-2, A/KE/738/16)</p></span>

• <corpname>Chase Farm Schools, 1886-?1938</corpname>
• <corpname>Chase Farm Hospital, ?1938-1948</corpname>

Chase Farm Schools were opened in 1886 by Edmonton Board of Guardians to accommodate 500 children. They replaced the former Edmonton Union Schools also in Enfield on the site now occupied by St Michael's Hospital. By 1930 when the Schools were transferred to Middlesex County Council, the Medical Officer of Health for Middlesex reported that the buildings intended for the accommodation and education of 600 children were underutilised. Only 300 children were resident in the Schools and a change of policy meant that they now attended ordinary day schools in the area. The lower floor of the Infirmary and another block were now used for the care of 82 sick children and infants transferred from the North Middlesex Hospital. It was decided to adapt another isolated block to accommodate 37 bedridden infirm women from Edmonton House and North Middlesex Hospital. By 1938 Chase Farm as it was now known, had almost ceased to be a children's home and had become a hospital for the elderly. On the outbreak of war in 1939 Chase Farm became an emergency hospital with 800 beds. In 1948 it became part of the National Health Service as a general hospital under the control of the North East Thames Regional Health Authority and Enfield Hospital Management Committee.