Stories
Ethel Ellen Hutchings A.R.R.C. (1884-1977)
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1907 – 1911. Nurse training at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary
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7th August 1912. Took her CMB examination in Midwifery
Midwifery became legally recognised in Britain in 1902 with the first Midwives Act. The Central Midwives Board (CMB) was established as part of the Midwives Act. Its function was to approve training programmes, define ‘Rules of Practice’ and set an expectation of moral good character, which was to be demonstrated in written proof submitted by individuals considered acceptable to the Board.
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1914-1918: Served as a Military Nurse in World War I.
During the First World War, Ethel served as a military nurse. She was awarded the 1914-15 Star, The British War Medal and The Victory Medal. The Victory Medal has an oak leaf stitched to the ribbon, which represents the fact that she was mentioned in dispatches.
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1916: Awarded the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Medal (QAIMNS)
During the First World War Ethel was also awarded the QAIMNS Medal for her services to military nursing. Throughout the war there were over 10,000 regular and reserve QAIMNS serving in countries such as France, India, East Africa, Italy, Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Salonika and Russia.
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1918: Awarded the Royal Red Cross Military Services Medal, 2nd Class.
At the end of the War, Ethel was awarded the Royal Red Cross as part of the New Years Honours list for “exceptional services in military nursing”.
Recipients of the Royal Red Cross are entitled to use the post-nominal letters "RRC" or "ARRC" for Members and Associates respectively.
Click document to enlarge
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14th June 1919: Left for Bombay via Liverpool
We know Ethel left for Bombay due to the ship records. The records show Ethel’s profession as “hospital nurse.”
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1920: Awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal
Ethel was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal in 1920 for “exceptional courage and devotion to the wounded in conflict or exemplar service in areas of public health or nurse education.”
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1926: Registered as a Nurse at Sassoon Hospital, Poona
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1931 - 1948: Registered as Matron at Lady Dufferin Victoria Hospital, Calcutta
During her time spent here, Ethel was Matron and played a key role in the passing of the Bengal Nurses Act in 1934. The Act ensured the registration and better training of nurses, midwives and health visitors in Bengal. As shown here in this article from the British Journal of Nursing, June 1934 (click to enlarge):
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1937: Awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind medal
In 1937, Ethel was awarded the Kaisar-i-Hind medal. Recipients of this medal are few and it is awarded to “any person without distinction of race, occupation, position, or sex ... who shall have distinguished himself (or herself) by important and useful service in the advancement of the public interest in India."
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4th January 1944: Awarded the Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem medal.
On the 4th January 1944, Ethel was awarded the 'Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem' silver medal. The medal is a British Royal order of chivalry constituted in 1888 by royal charter from Queen Victoria and dedicated to St John the Baptist.
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13th June 1946: Awarded an O.B.E from George VI.
On the 13th June 1946, Ethel was awarded an OBE. The London Gazette, 13th June 1946, described her as "Miss Ethel Ellen HUTCHINGS, A.R.R.C., Chief Lady Superintendent, Auxiliary Nursing Service, in the Office of the Director-General, Indian Medical Service."
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16th February 1948: Left India and returned to England
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1977: Died in Cheltenham at the age of 92.
William Strutt and
The Derbyshire General Infirmary
A Brief History of Hospitals in the UK
Before the ‘age of enlightenment’ hospitals in the United Kingdom tended to have been run by the Church, in monasteries and alms houses.
But in the 18th century, that began to change.
According to Burdett’s List of Hospitals and Dispensaries, 31 general hospitals were founded in the UK between 1700 and 1802. In the East Midlands, three key hospitals were built:
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Lincoln County Hospital in 1769
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Leicester Royal Infirmary in 1771
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Nottingham General Hospital 1782
Derby was somewhat lagging but that was about to change in 1803.
The Derbyshire General Infirmary 1810-1891
On the 7th of February 1803, the Reverend Thomas Gisbourne, of Yoxall Lodge, in a letter to Francis Noel Clarke Mundy Esq of Markeaton, then an active magistrate for the County, suggested the erection of an Infirmary at Derby, offering to contribute to the project £5,000 left in the hands of himself and of Mr Hawkins Browne from the estate of Isaac Hawkins. Money bequeathed for benevolent purposes.
Mr Mundy communicated the proposal to his brother magistrates and to the Mayor and Corporation of Derby. He then submitted the project to the Lord-Lieutenant of the County, His Grace the Duke of Devonshire who donated £2,000 to the project.
A meeting of the leading inhabitants of the town and county was convened by the High Sheriff at the County Hall, on the 5th of April 1803. Liberal contributions (£17,215 with a further £2,592 and 18 shillings) were promised, and a subscription list established. Here are just a few of those first subscribers:
Click on a name for more information
Land was purchased from the Castle Fields estate at a cost of £200 per acre. 14 acres was purchased. William Strutt (1756-1830), the cotton manufacturer, philanthropist, inventor and architect was commissioned to build the Infirmary.
William Strutt and his Building Innovations
William Strutt, despite his limited formal education, came to be regarded as an expert in the design of fire-proof buildings, in hot-air heating systems and, following the completion of his tour de force, the Derby Infirmary, in the design of hospitals. Strutt used some of the building techniques he’d employed in his Cotton mills to the design.
The Infirmary was one of the first British hospitals to employ an iron and glass structure for the roof (the dome), iron pillars and beams, iron-framed windows, and a fire-proof ceiling over the baths.
The iron dome structure allowed six skylights to be incorporated, each consisting of three rows of glass panels, thus maximising the amount of light shining onto the central hall and staircase, a 10ft terracotta statue of Aesculapius (the Greek God of medicine and son of Apollo) designed by William Coffee stood on the top. Sadly, the statue went missing in 1890 and its whereabouts are still unknown.
The Infirmary was cubical in shape and spread over three floors. The basement story was below ground level and contained public baths, cellars, kitchens and a wash house. The middle story was elevated and approached by steps and a portico supported by four pillars made of millstone stone, sourced from a quarry at Wirksworth. Besides housing a couple of Wards, the outpatient room and chapel, it contained a boardroom, servants’ quarters and the rooms for the medical staff. The upper story was approached by a staircase leading from a spacious hall in the middle of the building.
In 1792 Strutt had devised a type of warm air stove and arrangement of flues and turncaps to warm and ventilate a mill at Belper. In Strutt's system at Derby, air was introduced by means of a four-foot wide, 70 yard long duct and heated by an iron plated cubicle "cockle" or stove in the basement, encased in brick and placed over the fire under a grate. Warm air was directed through a series of ducts throughout the three levels of the building. The smoke from the fire escaped from the cockle into the flues by passing downward through two long, narrow slits on opposite sides of the cockle.
An outlet on the roof was provided with a turncap for the escape of foul air by flues connected with all the rooms for patients, whilst a second turncap away from the main building and connected to it by an underground culvert, was controlled by the power of a vane that turned it into the wind.
The first turncap vane turned it always away from the wind. By these means, a current of air always passed through the wards.
The 15 horsepower steam engine worked a forcing pump, which raised water from a well to a cistern at the top of the building. It also gave motion to horizontal shaft that communicated with the wash house to turn the washing machine and the steam was used to warm the public baths.
Photo from the UHDB Medical Museum Collection
A laundry dried the linen by the action of warm air from the heating system, whilst wet linen was passed into the hot closet on sliding horses with grooves to run across rails. In the kitchen Strutt incorporated a more efficient roaster of his own design and a new type of steaming apparatus, which he also used at his Derby home.
Amazingly and way ahead of his time, Strutt also invented the adjustable bed mechanism after he had noticed that the nurses had great difficulty in turning over some patients without causing pain. Strutt's bed utilised a toothed wheel, ratchet and spring mechanism, allowing patients to be moved to any sideways position and held in place for comfort and easy treatment.
Staffing
Initially, the medical staff was small consisting of a matron, two nurses, a resident house apothecary and a secretary. Three physicians and four surgeons attended periodically and according to a rota of duty days for emergencies.
As was common in Georgian general hospitals, apart from emergencies, patients could be admitted only through the recommendation of subscribers or senior medical staff. Again, as was usual, many types of patient were excluded, such as those who could afford their own treatment, pregnant women, children under the age of seven, prostitutes and those convicted of criminal offences.
The Infirmary opened on Monday 4th June 1810, and began by providing accommodation to 80 patients.
The baths were established in 1811 and were situated
to the left and right of the basement story entrance.
The baths to the left were kept at a constant 84 degrees and the baths to the right at a constant 92 degrees. A single bath cost 2 shillings, but 20 tickets transferable to members of the same family could be purchased for 20 shillings. A costly indulgence when we consider that for most of the 1800s a shilling was approximately a day’s wage for a labouring man. The baths were discontinued in 1835 as they were deemed no longer profitable.
Photo from the UHDB Medical Museum Collection
Gas was introduced in 1825, and an anatomical museum was established in 1830. In 1848 new fever wards for 40 patients was built and in 1857 £600 was spent in improving the ventilation, but this was found to be still imperfect, and in 1865 the “Nightingale Wing” with chapel, kitchens, and other buildings were built and formally opened by the then Lord Vernon on November 12th 1865. In 1891 the Infirmary’s condition had become unhealthy and after a thorough investigation, it’s demolition was decided upon.
In it’s heyday, the hospital was seen as a leader in European architecture and architects and visiting Royalty were brought to see its features. Strutt died in 1830 and was buried in the Unitarian Chapel in Friargate, Derby. The President of the Royal Society eulogised Strutt in 1831 as
"..author of those great improvements in the construction of stoves, and in the economical generation and distribution of heat, which have of late years been so extensively and so usefully introduced in the warming and ventilation of hospitals and public buildings".
Want to know more? Click image to read "The Philosophy of Domestic Economy" by Charles Sylvester, 1819
(public domain)
William Ogle and Florence Nightingale
Mortality rates were high at the Derbyshire General Infirmary and the standard of care was quite poor. Between 1864 and 1866 William Ogle, the then Superintendent of the Infirmary and founder of the Derby Medical Association (founded in 1862) entered into a correspondence with Florence Nightingale. He wanted to enlarge the Infirmary, improve the standard of care, and establish a training school for nurses.
Before Florence Nightingale came along, nursing was not seen as a skilled profession. Nor did the position command any respect. Nursing was seen as menial, rough and largely working-class work.
In literature, nurses were depicted as gin-sodden and prone to larceny, such as Sarah Gamp in Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit.
Take a look as the insignia pictured here in the Supplement to the Nursing Record from 1888. The right insignia is a red cross but on the left is an umbrella crossed with a bottle of grog
Until Florence Nightingale came along. After her impact on nursing during the Crimean War, Florence set up the first nurse training school in the world, at St Thomas' in London in 1860. Her nurses received training and were then sent to hospitals throughout Britain. As a consequence of her correspondence with William Ogle, she sent Elizabeth Kilvert to be the first lady superintendent of the Derbyshire General Infirmary in November 1866. Elizabeth brought with her four other trained nurses.
Ogle extended the hospital and built the Nightingale Wing in her honour. The Wing was opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales on the 17th of December 1872.
The Visit of Queen Victoria to Derby (21st May 1891)
In 1890, after an outbreak of illness amongst nursing staff of the General Infirmary, the president Sir William Evans Bart took action and an inspection of the building took place.
It was subsequently condemned by Dr Seaton (the Local Government Board inspector), who conducted a 3 day survey, and the results met with "astonishment and dismay".
As a result of rats getting into the drainage systems through decaying brickwork, and previous repairs resulting in drainage and ventilation becoming "confused", the building was now full of "foul and contaminated gases" and a rebuild was urgently required.
Click to open PDF
A building committee was formed and with the assistance of Messrs. Young and Hall, Architects from London, plans were in place for a new Infirmary.
Dignitaries from around the county, among them The Marquis of Hartington (representing the Duke of Devonshire), Lord Scarsdale the Bishop of Derby,
High Sheriff Mr E. Miller Mundy and Sir Douglas Galston, The Mayor of Derby met with Sir William Evans Bart and discussed the project. The announcement that Queen Victoria would be laying the foundation stone was made by Hartington (who many have credited with the arrangement of the Queen's participation in the event).
Donations and subscriptions were sought to aid in the building of the new infirmary, (this was pre-NHS of course) with large sums coming from notable individuals such as the Duke of Devonshire and Sir William Evans Bart also from the Shareholders of the Midland Railway Co., with numerous smaller amounts from the public.
The Mayor of Derby also committed to funding the cost of entertaining the Queen, the other royals and guests, and also any other expenses that occurred.
Planning for the day, including the route, the decorations and the entertainments could commence...
For an extensive account of the planning of the visit and a detailed breakdown of events, please click on the image of the Memorial Volume. This is a copy of the account written by W.Hobson of the Derby "Advertiser" 1891. Digitised by the Internet Archive in 2007. University of California Library, Los Angeles.
Photographs of the ceremony and preparations.
Ceremonial Objects
Due to the huge impact the event had on the city of Derby, a number of commemorative objects were produced some of which we have in our collection.
We have the ceremonial hammer (as depicted here) and spirit level, used by Queen Victoria on the day, as well as newspaper pages, a celebratory coin and a mug depicting the Queen.
Collection documents
Centenary Celebrations
In 1991, to celebrate 100 years since the event of the visit, a number of events took place at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary and around Derby, and a recreation of the visit took place including the "Queen" and her dignitaries.
We have the programme of these events in our collection as well as numerous photographs depicting the day, from the re-enactment of the horse drawn coach ride to the visit of the then Duke of Devonshire, culminating in the unveiling of the "100 years" commemorative stone.
The Workhouses of Derby and Burton
A workhouse was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment.
The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Statute of Cambridge 1388, a piece of English Legislation that placed restrictions on the movements of labourers and beggars following the Black Death, a bubonic plague pandemic that caused the deaths of 75-200 million people between 1346 and 1353.
Mass unemployment following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the introduction of new technology to replace agricultural workers, and a series of bad harvests, meant that by the early 1830s the established system of poor relief was proving to be unsustainable.
The New Poor Law of 1834 ensured that the poor were housed in workhouses, clothed and fed. Children who entered the workhouse would receive some schooling and in return for this care, all workhouse residents would have to work for several hours each day.
As the 19th century wore on, workhouses increasingly became refuges for the elderly, infirm, and sick rather than the able-bodied poor, and in 1929 legislation was passed to allow local authorities to take over workhouse infirmaries as municipal hospitals.
Although workhouses were formally abolished in 1930, many continued under the title of “Public Assistance Institutions” and were under the control of local authorities. It was not until the introduction of the National Assistance Act of 1948 that the last vestiges of the Poor Law finally disappeared, and with them the workhouses.
Life in the Workhouse
Upon entering the workhouse, new inmates usually spent some time in a receiving ward where they received a medical inspection. They were given a bath, had their clothes taken away for disinfecting, and were issued with the workhouse uniform. For men this was usually a jacket and trousers in rough cloth, striped cotton shirt, cloth cap and shoes. For women this was usually a blue and white ankle length striped shift-frock with a smock worn over the top.
Daily life in the workhouse was conducted to the timetable below, punctuated by the ringing of the workhouse bell. On Sundays, no work was performed except for essential domestic chores.
The ‘No. 3 Dietary’ issued by the Poor Law Commissioners in 1836 gave the following dietary guidelines for the inmates:
After 1900, Unions were allowed to devise their own dietaries.
Some workhouses had workshops for sewing, spinning and weaving or other local trades. Others had their own vegetable gardens where inmates worked to provide food for the workhouse. Women performed the domestic tasks of cooking, cleaning and the workhouse laundry. Men were given heavy manual work such as stone-breaking (for saleable road making), corn-grinding (for flour), gypsum crushing (for use in plaster making), oakum picking (teasing out the fibres from old hep ropes) and bone crushing (to produce fertiliser).
After 1934, Poor Law Unions were required to provide at least three hours a day for the schooling of workhouse children. Children were taught reading, writing and arithmetic and the principles of Christian religion. By the 1840’s, unions were being encouraged to place children in buildings separate from the workhouse to remove them from any polluting associations with adult workhouse inmates.
The Workhouses in Derby
A workhouse existed in Derby from around 1729. A parliamentary report of 1777 recorded five parish workhouses in Derby. St Alkmunds on Lodge Lane with accommodation for up to thirty four inmates, All Saints on Walker Lane with sixty, St Michael with fourteen, St Peter with forty and St Werburgh on Friargate with fifty.
Derby Poor Law Union formally came into existence on the 19th October 1837. The first workhouse which was run by The Derby Union was built on Osmaston Road in 1838 and accommodated three hundred and fifty inmates.
Osmaston Road former Workhouse, 1880’s
The Derby Union built a second workhouse on Uttoxeter Road in 1878. The building of this new workhouse led to the site on Osmaston Road being put up for sale in 1876. It was purchased by the Royal Crown Derby Company for the establishment of a new factory.
A gatehouse stood at the southern entrance to the site, with vagrants' wards to the west. Behind the gatehouse stood the three-storey main block with a central clock tower. There was a central dining hall and kitchen block to its rear. Further north lay the chapel with the infirmary to its east. A separate school building lay at the north of the site.
When the County Council took over responsibility for the workhouses from the Boards of Guardians in 1930, it became known as Boundary House Public Assistance Institution. It was transferred to the National Health Service in 1948 and became known as Manor Hospital. In later years it was used as a hospital for the elderly. The hospital closed in 1988 and the building was demolished in 1992.
We have a number of items in our collection relating to the Manor Hospital, including two rim lock keys from the Hospital’s workhouse origins.
From the UHDB Medical Museum Collection
In 1926, work began on a scheme on a 28-acre site on Uttoxeter Road to build a Poor Law Hospital. The official laying of the foundation stone took place on the 29th of June 1927. The hospital was officially opened on Saturday 16th November 1929, by the Mayor of Derby, Alderman JH Grant.
From the UHDB Medical Museum Collection
The hospital could accommodate three hundred patients and contained four thirty bed wards, each with day room plus a number of smaller one and two bed wards. A nurses room, bath and stores were at the inner end near to the main corridor. Also connected to the corridor were the operating theatre, maternity block and special treatment blocks. A porters lodge stood at the northern entrance to the site, with a mortuary to its rear. A large nurses home was built on the site in 1934.
Photo from the UHDB Medical Museum Collection
On the 1st of April 1930, less than six months after the hospitals official opening, the Local Government Act of 1929 came into operation. On that date, control of the hospital passed to Derby Town Council. It was transferred to the National Health Service in 1948 and still operates today.
The Workhouse in Burton
The first workhouse in Burton was built in 1728 in a converted barn on what is now known as Wetmore Road. In 1776 it could house sixty inmates. The building was sold in 1847 and later became a brewery warehouse.
Burton-upon-Trent Poor Law Union formally came into existence on the 30th of March 1837. The first workhouse, which was run by The Burton-upon Trent Union, was built between Horninglow Street and Hawkins Lane in Burton in 1838 and accommodated three hundred inmates.
The Burton-upon Trent Union built a second workhouse on Belvedere Road in 1884. The building of this new workhouse led to the site on Horninglow Street and Hawkins Lane to be first used as an infectious diseases hospital and then sold to the Bass Brewing Company in June 1891.
The Belvedere Road workhouse could accommodate five hundred and fifty inmates and was formally opened on the 23rd October 1884 by Chairman of the Board of Guardians, Major Bindley.
A gatehouse stood at the southern entrance to the site, with vagrants' wards to the west. Behind the gatehouse stood the three-storey main block with a central clock tower. There was a central dining hall and kitchen block to its rear. Further north lay the chapel with the infirmary to its east. A separate school building lay at the north of the site.
Photo from the UHDB Medical Museum Collection
Inmates were separated into blocks with males, females and children being kept apart, even when from the same family. Within the children’s block, boys and girls were further segregated. Next to the children’s block was a schoolhouse. To the right was the Casuals block for short-term inmates. At the rear of the site was an Infirmary and close by, a mortuary and stable block.
In 1930, the workhouse became Burton-upon-Trent Public Assistance Institution. In 1948, the site was transferred to the National Health Service for the building of Burton District Hospital.
Several buildings survived to become part of the new hospital and even today, remain in use as part of Queen’s Hospital. Here are a few of the key former workhouse buildings that are still in use today:
The former workhouse masters house, now known as 'The House' and used as offices (formerly housed the Chief Executive's office)
The plaque in the gable of The House
The workhouse children’s accommodation block, now houses the IT Offices.
The former workhouse masters house, now known as 'The House' and used as offices (formerly housed the Chief Executive's office)
The "Windrush" Nurses
The NHS officially opened on the 5th of July 1948 following campaigning and planning by Aneurin Bevan. It was understaffed from its inception and so the NHS actively sought staff from all over the world, focusing on Commonwealth countries.
Worldwide call for staff
People were invited to the UK by the government, and they came from all over the globe, nurses and midwives from Jamaica, Barbados and Malaysia and doctors from India and Pakistan.
On the 22nd of June 1948 the now famous ‘Empire Windrush’ docked at Tilbury bringing the first wave of Caribbean immigrants coming to help rebuild post war Britain and to staff the NHS. 492 passengers travelled on board. Though integral to the NHS, life proved difficult for these migrants. It proved hard to find accommodation and they were not accepted socially.
(left) The National Windrush Monument (Creative Commons image), and (above) the Empire Windrush, originally a German ship captured as a prize of war by the British in 1945. (public domain image)
A pamphlet entitled "A West Indian in England" A West Indian in England - The National Archives was produced in 1950 by The Central Office of Information in order to aid these migrants to adjust to life UK.
The opening page reads; "As you get closer into London, you may begin to notice the effect of the Blitz. Several houses and warehouses beside the railway lines are mere shells, completely burnt out and gutted, mute reminders of the German effort to dislocate the complex railroad system that connects London with the rest of England"
By 1954, there were more than 3,000 women from the Caribbean training as nurses in British Hospitals.
Nurses training at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary. (UHDB Medical Museum Collection)
Nurses at the Manor Hospital. (UHDB Medical Museum Collection)
One of these "Windrush" nurses was Dorcas Minto, grandmother of Stacey Martin, Registered Nurse at UHDB NHS Foundation Trust.
Dorcas, originally from Saint Annes in Jamaica, came over to Britain with the promise of developing a Nursing career. This she achieved and Dorcas worked for Derby Hospitals, specialising in Women and Children until she retired in the 1990's.
Dorcas Minto
(UHDB Medical Museum Collection)
Derby West Indian Community
In Derby, the first seed of the Derby West Indian Association was sown in 1955 when a group of West Indians met in a house to discuss unity and survival in a foreign land. Several attempts were made to establish a formal Centre for West Indians but without success. They continued to have meetings in each other's homes, using the local authority premises at Peartree House for larger meetings.
In 1977, a search for a base for the West Indian Community began in earnest. With the help and advice of the Derby Council for Voluntary Services, an application was made to the Department of the Environment for a grant towards what was called a “Day Centre”, with a hall to provide accommodation for 200 people, a nursery, a room for the elderly West Indians, a library, office, Committee Room, indoor games equipment and furnishings. The application however failed.
An application in 1977/78 for £49,000 under the Government Urban Programme through Derbyshire County Council was successful. However, by this time most people now felt their problems were over and it was not until 1981 that they were able to move into the first phase of the building. The Derby West Indian Community Cultural Centre (DWICA) was officially opened on 31st July 1982. It is a voluntary run community organisation which exists to provide services for the Black and Culturally Diverse community of Derby.
Barry John Wilson and the Pharmacy Collection
Biography of Barry John Wilson (1939-2021)
Barry John Wilson was born on the 22nd of April 1939, five months before the commencement of World War II. He attended Macado Road Primary School then St Johns Street Junior School. At 11 years old he gained the 11 plus exam and moved to Long Eaton Grammar School. Leaving in December 1956.
His Daughter Helen has told us that while Barry does not remember the NHS becoming a reality, he does remember that the doctor’s receptionist stopped coming to the house on a regular basis to collect money which would pay for the family’s healthcare needs.
Barry trained as a Pharmacist in Sunderland, qualifying on 1st January 1962. Registering as a Pharmaceutical Chemist and became a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.
Photograph of B.J Wilson, Chaddesden, 1976
In 1966, he realised his dream by opening his first pharmacy in Chaddesden, which remains open to this day. There are currently six shops still bearing the name of BJ Wilson Ltd.
Photograph of B.J Wilson Pharmacy, Borrowash, 1996
Barry was an active member of many organisations, which included both professional and recreational interests, including the National Pharmaceutical Association, Local Pharmaceutical Committee, Chamber of Trade, St. Stephens’ Church Borrowash, the Conservative Association, Midland Railway at Butterley, to name a few. He took his roles within these organisations very seriously.
He was a member of the Local Pharmaceutical Committee for over 25 years, many of which he headed the committee as the chairperson.
Barry married Margaret Anne on 30th September 1961. Over the years the family grew to include four daughters, plus their Goddaughter, eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
Around 6 years before his death in March 2021, Barry became unwell with kidney disease. As the disease progressed, it made it increasingly difficult for him to run the business. The day-to-day running of the business was taken over by a team of directors, who continue in their roles to this day. Keeping up with his CPD to remain on the General Pharmaceutical Council’s Register of Pharmacists also became a problem and Barry voluntarily resigned from this following 54 years of practice due to deteriorating health in July 2016.
The B.J Wilson Pharmacy Collection
Here are just a selection of the wonderful objects that have been donated and are part of the B.J Wilson collection. Click here to view the entire collection in our catalogue.