Lewes Borough Council: Lewes District Hospital ledger

<p>For minutes of the governing body, 1876-1939 see DL/D/161/1-3; for accounts, 1880-1881 see DL/D/205/1; for a report by the County Medical Officer of Health on the criteria for the admission of patients to the hospital and on the propriety of making charges, in response to resolutions of borough ratepayers, 1901-1902 see C/C 74/19; for file concerning a scheme for the provision of hospital accommodation for infectious diseases under the 1929 Local Government Act, 1935-1937 see C/C 74/78; for minutes of the Lewes, Newhaven and Seaford Joint Hospital Board, 1939-1948 see DL/D/235/1-3. A history of the hospital by P Russell The Lewes Hospital for Infectious Diseases (1992) is available in the Search Room library.</p>

The hospital, which was established in 1876 at a site on the east side of Nevill Road, was known variously as the Lewes District Hospital, the Lewes Joint Hospital for Infectious Diseases and the Lewes Hospital for Infectious Diseases. It was administered jointly by the Lewes Urban and Rural Sanitary Authorities from 1876 and on the incorporation of Lewes Borough in 1881 it was administered by a Management Committee of Lewes Borough Council, on which there were two representatives of Lewes Rural Sanitary Authority, which became Lewes Rural District Council in 1894 and Chailey Rural District Council in 1898. Ownership of the hospital was transferred to Lewes Borough Council in June 1907 and it was administered by a sub-committee of the Sanitary Committee in July 1907, which became the Hospital for Infectious Diseases Committee on 14 November 1907, and the Hospital Committee from January 1927. On 1 October 1939 the Minister of Health made an order constituting the Borough of Lewes, Newhaven and Seaford Urban District Councils a united district for the purposes of the provision of hospital accommodation for cases of infectious diseases other than smallpox. As a result the Newhaven Isolation Hospital was transferred to the new Joint Board and the Lewes Hospital was closed.