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bharchives.bsky.social
Barts Health Archives
@bharchives.bsky.social
14K followers 250 following 190 posts
Explore nearly 900 years of history through the archives and objects cared for by Barts Health NHS Trust Archives. Part of Barts Health NHS Trust. Find out more at www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/barts-health-archives
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bharchives.bsky.social
It's #WorldDigitalPreservationDay, and we're asking #WhyPreserve ? Our hospitals have been creating digital records in various forms for over 60 years, but as technology evolves, information and records can become inaccessible. Digital preservation is essential for future access #WDPD2025
Photograph of two staff members at the London Hospital seated at IBM microcomputers in front of them, processing hospital expenditure accounts, c1970s [RLHLH/P/2/22/8]
November 6, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Barts Health Archives
norfolkro.bsky.social
On this day nurse #EdithCavell and #PhilipeBaucq were shot at dawn for helping allied soldiers to escape Belgium during the First World War. This is a letter from one of those soldiers.
October 12, 2025 at 3:41 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
Join us and the amazing Allyson Williams MBE next Monday, 13 October, for this #BlackHistoryMonth event👇
Book your free ticket using the link below
migrationmuseum.org Migration Museum @migrationmuseum.org · Oct 6
Join us on 13 Oct at Barts North Wing, London to hear from expert speakers about the Windrush generation’s significant contributions to the NHS. #BlackHistoryMonth

This event is held in partnership with Barts Health NHS Trust Archives, Barts Heritage, & Culture Mile BID.

Book here: bit.ly/48fzzQQ
October 7, 2025 at 12:02 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
It's that time again! The September newsletter is now out👀 - check your inbox if you're on our mailing list (and if you're not, sign up via our website!)
You can also read it in the 'Newsletters and blogs' section of the website www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/barts-health-archives
Jpg image of page 2 of the newsletter - read it in full via our website or by joining our mailing list
October 3, 2025 at 6:46 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
Join us with the @migrationmuseum.org and Culture Mile BID, in @bartsnorthwing.bsky.social this #BlackHistoryMonth for "Migration Stories: Windrush and the NHS".

Tickets are free but must be booked in advance - to book and for more information, visit www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/black-hist...
Black History Month | Migration Stories: Windrush and the NHS
Hear from expert speakers about the Windrush generation’s significant contributions to the development of the National Health Service.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
October 1, 2025 at 8:41 AM
Reposted by Barts Health Archives
dohertyta.bsky.social
Meet Annie McIntosh CBE RRC (1871-1951)

Born in #Herefordshire Matron at St Barts. Active in representing nurses in many committees she was an active RCN Council member

#HistNursing #WomensHistory #WomenInRed
#NursesInRed #Wikipedia @bharchives.bsky.social

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_M...
Annie McIntosh - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 1, 2025 at 8:20 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
Our collections include registers of births at the Salvation Army Mothers' Hospital in Clapton - many of the other records of the hospital are held at @salvarmyarchive.bsky.social.
Read this fascinating article to find out more about the role of Salvation Army midwives 'on the district' 👀
September 26, 2025 at 11:38 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
In 1912 baby elephant, Jumbo, visited the London Hospital to have his heart beats registered.

Jumbo was one of a pair of elephants owned by the Daily Mirror. They were used for to fundraise for hospitals and charities before being donated to ZSL.

#WorldElephantDay #ElephantDay #Jumbo
RLHLH/P/2/19/01 - A black and white photo showing baby elephant standing in metal baths in front of hospital staff. Inscribed on the front: "No. 8 Baby Jumbo. The Daily Mirror Elephant having his heart beats registered at the London Hospital."
August 12, 2025 at 8:57 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
A cat in the catering department! Or should that be CAT-ring department?

This photo, from 1922, shows members of the St Bartholomew’s Hospital catering staff 🐈

#InternationalCatDay #Archives
SBHX8/1788 - Thirteen members of the catering staff at St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1922. The eleven women and two men are pictured in four rows. The women are wearing white aprons, collars and caps, and one is holding a black cat. One woman has been marked with the letter M or by an X.
August 8, 2025 at 8:25 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
Yesterday we hosted an away day for the dietetics team from the Royal London Hospital, kicking off with a display on the rich history of food, diet and dietitians at the London. If you work for the Trust and like the sound of an Archives away day, get in touch!
The group stand at a table in the archives searchroom looking at a display of documents Dietitians looking at documents A diet table annotated by a nursing student from the London Hospital Training School for nurses, c1920s
July 25, 2025 at 3:53 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
Our "coolest spoon" - a lithotomy scoop, used during surgeries to remove bladder stones. The surgeon would use tools to break up the stone in the bladder and then use a spoon, like this, and forceps to remove the shards.

This example, RLHINV/279, dates from about 1880 🥄
Long handled metal spoon photographed against a white background, there is a ruler at the bottom of the photo. There is a smooth handle at one end and at the other end is a scoop with indentation to help grip the stone for removal.
July 15, 2025 at 1:09 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
A different type of nurses cap today - swimming caps! These pictures from the 1950s show the London Hospital nurses enjoying some leisure time in hospital pool 🌊

#HistNursing #LondonHistory
RLHLH/P/2/15/09 - Black and white photograph, circa 1950, showing two people in swimming costumes and caps sitting by the side of an indoor swimming pool. Behind them there are some people entering the pool via the steps, and people waiting to jump off a diving board. RLHLH/P/2/15/01 - Black and white photo, circa 1950. showing people wearing swimming costumes and caps sitting around the edge of an indoor swimming pool, four people are standing on blocks waiting to dive in.
July 11, 2025 at 10:04 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
First outing for our new BHA banner at the @qmul.bsky.social Founders Day event!
A pull-up banner with text and photos explaining the services provided by the barts health archives A table with papers and activities on a parquet floor. There are two banners and a mannequin nun either side of the table A view up at a vaulted ceiling and library shelves in a victorian looking building. There are rows of chairs pointed towards a large screen with a blue background that reads Welcome to Founders Day 2025
July 9, 2025 at 6:07 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
No holiday booked this year? No problem! The RELAXATOR will give you that relaxed feeling - banishing mental tension and restoring your physical energy!

This advert was in the St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal, 1968.
Black and white advert printed on green/blue coloured paper. It reads "10 minutes holiday a day. The relaxator - the wonderful unique design of the Seat of the Century is the perfect answer to induce quick, complete relaxation, banish mental tension, restore physical energy. Unwind from the stress of modern living. To relax properly the head needs to be lower than your feet, the body is suspended in a special curve. This is just one relaxing position you can get with this life-long investment for leisure. Elegant, light and portable." Taken from the St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal, 1968
July 9, 2025 at 9:49 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
#CowAppreciationDay you say? We have several cow horns in our collection. These examples date from around 1700 and were used to feed children and patients that were too poorly to consume solid food 🐮
SBHX4/551 - A colour photo showing two dark brown, nearly black, horns against a white fabric background. The horns have been smoothed and have a wax nozzle at one end to assist with feeding. At the bottom of the picture is a size and colour gauge to help photograph museum objects.
July 8, 2025 at 10:46 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
Weekend reading sorted! 📖👀
Out today, the new issue of our newsletter - read it at the 'Newsletters and Blogs' section of our website, www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/barts-health.... Check your inbox if you're already on our mailing list, or go to the website to sign up and receive future issues!
Image of part of the front page of Archives newsletter issue 9, with part of an article entitled 'Written on the Walls: the Whipps Cross Hospital graffiti recording project'. The full text can be read by downloading the newsletter from our website
July 4, 2025 at 3:58 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
Ever wondered about the names of some of the old streetscape around the Royal London Hospital?
When the new hospital was built on Whitechapel Road in the 1750s, it neighboured a place variously known as a dunghill, a rampart, & a plague burial ground - find out more open.substack.com/pub/theunder...
The White Chapel Mount
Where there's a hill, there's a way
open.substack.com
June 8, 2025 at 7:32 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
It's #DietitiansWeek #DW2025, so we're looking back at the development of dietetics at our hospitals. Margery Abrahams, dietitian at St Bartholomew's Hospital & first chair of the British Dietetic Association, was an early pioneer. Her book Modern Dietary Treatment was published in 1937 (🧵 1/)
Black and white photograph showing Margery Abrahams and assistants in white dresses, aprons and caps working in the Diet Kitchen at St Bartholomew's Hospital, c1930s. Abrahams is pictured between two unnamed assistants, one of whom is making pastry, the other weighing milk.
June 6, 2025 at 9:48 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
👀New blog post!👀 Our wonderful placement student from the @ucl.ac.uk archives course, Symona, looks back at her time in the archives
www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/archives-blo...
Ledgers and newsletters - a placement report | Blogs from the Archives-Barts Health NHS Trust
Our placement student Symona shares what she has learnt
www.bartshealth.nhs.uk
May 22, 2025 at 12:14 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
Inspired by some of the marginalia in our 15th century Cok's Cartulary, we designed some stickers for visitors at View Day.

Which character are you - the grumpy bunny? A two faced dog/king? A basilisk? A hungry fox? A merry piper?
A collection of five colourful circles containing illustrations. Top left - an illustration of a rabbit holding a sprig of something, on a pink background. Top right - a surreal image of two dogs hugging surrounded by faces, against a red background. Middle - an illustration in orange of a winged snake, against a yellow background. Bottom left - an illustration in dark blue of a medieval character playing a horn and standing on one leg, against a light blue background. Bottom right - an illustration in red, of a fox holding a goose, against a green background. What are these drawings? These doodles and drawings were made along the edges of pages in the St Bartholomew’s Hospital Cartulary. They are called marginalia. There are drawings of pets, mythical creatures, musicians, faces, and fancy lettering. Sometimes they are pictures about the text, sometimes they highlight important bits in the text, and sometimes they are random. What is a cartulary? A cartulary is a collection of important documents kept together to help run a medieval organisation. Sometimes these documents have been bound together into a book. The word cartulary comes from the Latin word ‘chartula’ which means ‘little paper’. Some cartularies are decorated with colourful illustrations and gold. Why does St Bartholomew’s Hospital have a cartulary? The cartulary was started by Brother John Cok in about 1418 but has copies of documents from as early as 1133. St Bartholomew’s Hospital made money by owning lands and charging rents, and the cartulary was used as a way of keeping track of all the documents needed to manage the hospital’s business. Sheets of stickers sitting on a white table cloth. An extract from a page of Cok's Cartulary showing medieval handwriting and some of the illustrations (the fox holding the goose).
May 14, 2025 at 2:28 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
View Day is here again! Visit our stall in the square at St Bartholomew's Hospital and find out how a day to survey the hospital properties evolved into a viewing of the patients and now an annual celebration of the hospital's work. Ice cream and historic pill making - it's all happening!
Archivist Ginny stands at a stall with books for sale and handling objects, and a display on the history of View Day Using a pill-making machine from our handling collection to make play doh pills! An ice cream cone at the stall
May 14, 2025 at 11:04 AM
bharchives.bsky.social
Huge congratulations to @sarahphd22.bsky.social for the well-deserved recognition of her #histnursing research and her commitment to making little-known nursing histories accessible to all. Sarah has helped us find out so much about our own collections over the years!
www.rcn.org.uk/news-and-eve...
Congress Award winner 2025 | News | Royal College of Nursing
Kent nurse wins RCN Congress 2025 award.
www.rcn.org.uk
May 13, 2025 at 3:27 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
Thank you to everyone who has made suggestions!
Given the location of the shelters in front of and possibly attached to the lower windows, we think that they were additional protection from bomb damage and shrapnel, while allowing the top part of the sashes to be opened for ventilation.
bharchives.bsky.social Barts Health Archives @bharchives.bsky.social · May 9
As the world has looked back on VE day this week, we have had a question about St Bartholomew's Hospital in the Second World War, which we can't answer. Can you help?!
This photo was taken in the hospital square in the 1940s; what was the purpose of the temporary wooden structures in the background?
A black and white photograph showing two women in outdoor coats and hats (Lisette Phillips, secretary at St Bartholomew's Hospital and her friend Venetia) standing by the fountain in the hospital square. In the background are hospital buildings - in front of one building is a row of wooden structures shaped like square based pyramids with the top chopped off. Slits are visible at the top of the slatted walls of the structures (SBHPP/ETP/1)
May 12, 2025 at 2:34 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
Cheers to nurses the world over, and the incredible work they do! #InternationalNursesDay #IND2025
Black and white photograph of three student nurses in uniform seated at bar tables by a window in the Three Feathers Club or Nurses Recreation Centre on the London Hospital site, c1970s [RLHLH/P/2/16/06] They are all eating from plates of pie and mash, and each has a partially-drunk half pint of beer in a tankard in front of them. The name badges worn by the nurse identify them as Miss E Chapman, Miss E Jones and Miss ? Jones.
May 12, 2025 at 1:51 PM
bharchives.bsky.social
As the world has looked back on VE day this week, we have had a question about St Bartholomew's Hospital in the Second World War, which we can't answer. Can you help?!
This photo was taken in the hospital square in the 1940s; what was the purpose of the temporary wooden structures in the background?
A black and white photograph showing two women in outdoor coats and hats (Lisette Phillips, secretary at St Bartholomew's Hospital and her friend Venetia) standing by the fountain in the hospital square. In the background are hospital buildings - in front of one building is a row of wooden structures shaped like square based pyramids with the top chopped off. Slits are visible at the top of the slatted walls of the structures (SBHPP/ETP/1)
May 9, 2025 at 7:40 AM