London Metropolitan Archives

The archives of Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals are held at:
London Metropolitan Archives (LMA)
40 Northampton Road
Clerkenwell
London EC1R 0HB
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/lma

The archive catalogue is available for researchers to use and original documents can be requested and consulted in the public reading rooms under supervision by archive staff. There is a long history of cooperation between the hospitals and the archive service which holds the historical records of over 100 hospitals in the London region. Funding provided by the Charity allows LMA to use its state of the art conservation facilities to provide for long-term preservation of the collections and to make the magnificent archives more accessible.

Cataloguing
Funding from the Charity ensures that the historic catalogues are in line with modern international standards, including the 800 linear metres of archives. The catalogue is available in both electronic format and hard copy at LMA.

The cataloguing programme continues to ensure that the archives incorporate the growing number of documents associated to the hospitals. Additions include records, annual reports, photographs and printed papers from the Evelina Hospital and Guy's Hospital Nurses' League, a WWII diary and photographs from St Thomas'. The archives store more than just paper records, and have now listed sound recordings of the St Thomas' staff Christmas shows from vinyl records.

The fruits of this work can be seen online as part of the searchable website of A2A: Access to Archives www.a2a.pro.gov.uk.

Conservation Survey
A 2001 Conservation Survey highlighted areas in the archives which needed essential conservation repair work. This provided the quantification and priorities of work which needed to be done.

Conservation work programme
The overall aim of the programme is to provide detailed conservation repair and comprehensive preservation packaging for the hospitals' archives.

A selection of maps, tracings, drawings, letter and glass plate negatives have been included in the repair work, as it would be impossible to grant safe access to researchers without treatment. Resources include estate plans from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and a series of seventeenth century letters. In total 474 separate paper maps and plans have been extensively repaired. Glass plate negatives and lantern slides have also been housed individually in specially designed boxes.

Bound material from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has also been repaired. Many volumes of this date suffer from poor quality leather covers, which together with sulphur dioxide pollution and constant use have resulted in extensive leather red rot. More than 900 volumes have been refurbished.

35 plans of the Medical School and 34 plans of St Thomas' Hospital estates in Hackney and Hackney Marshes have been washed, cleaned and repaired and made available to researchers. These include plans of the City of London Cemetery and important documentation of land tenure in this part of east London.

The Guy's Hospital 1725-1748 minute book for the Committee for taking in Lunatics and visitors book for the 1941-46 period after the air raid have been repaired, and the General Lying-In Hospital's 1776 minute book, 1833 printed Charter and register of baptisms (1871) and Legacies (1880-1924) have been repaired and made available in the reading rooms.

An early pen and wash plan of the hospital by architect Henry Currey; one of many such archival documents held for the Charity by the London Metropolitan Archives.

Email enquiries to: LMA@corpoflondon.gov.uk