The early history of Mildmay: 1866–1948
Waiting at Outpatients, 1890s
This page tells the story of Mildmay's first eight decades, from two women in crinolines walking into a cholera epidemic, to a purpose-built hospital serving the East End through two World Wars
For the full Mildmay story from 1866 to the present day, start with our History overview page.
1866:
Crinolines and Cholera
In the summer of 1866, as cholera spread through East London, a local vicar wrote to Mildmay asking for help.
Two Mildmay deaconesses (trained women providing nursing and social care) answered that call, travelling into one of London’s most deprived and dangerous neighbourhoods to care for those who were sick and dying.
Long after the immediate crisis had passed, they continued to return.
From the beginning, Mildmay’s approach was clear: to go where the need is greatest, and to remain for as long as we are needed.
Cabbage Court in Bethnal Green, where the first Mildmay Medical Mission opened in 1877.
Spitalfields Life published a detailed account of Mildmay's Victorian origins by writer Linda Wilkinson. Drawing on local history and archive material, it follows the story from the morning in 1866 when a letter arrived at William Pennefather's table asking the Deaconesses to help with a cholera outbreak in the slums of Bethnal Green, through the establishment of a base in Cabbage Court, the opening of the Medical Mission in 1877, and the move to Austin Street in 1892.
It captures both the physical conditions of the Old Nichol and the character of the women who chose to work there: self-funded, upper-class, arriving at Shoreditch Station in crinolines and bonnets to do, as Wilkinson puts it, what they believed their God wished. It remains the most vivid account of this period in Mildmay's history.
Read Crinolines & Cholera by Linda Wilkinson at Spitalfields Life
1857 ONWARDS:
Training nurses - the Mildmay Deaconesses
Mildmay Deaconesses: the trained Christian women who founded the hospital's nursing tradition.
William Pennefather and his wife Catherine, had begun their work together in 1857, recruiting and training a team of Christian women, known as Deaconesses, whose preparation included nursing, biblical study, cookery, and housekeeping, all in readiness to serve as missionaries in a Mildmay Mission or abroad.
William was the vicar of St Jude and St Paul's in Mildmay Park, Islington, a lively church of over 1,000 people, and the origin of the name that Transport for London gave to a section of the Overground in 2024.
The Pennefathers drew inspiration from Kaiserswerth, a Lutheran institution on the Rhine and the training ground of Florence Nightingale herself. The Mildmay Medical Mission was formally recognised as a nurse training institution in 1883, one of the first in the country.
William Pennefather
(1826-1873)
by an unknown artist
stipple engraving,
mid 19th century
NPG D11183
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Catherine Pennefather, who opened the first Mildmay Medical Mission in 1877, carrying forward her husband William's work after his death.
'Florence Nightingale trained at Kaiserswerth, the same German institution that inspired the Pennefathers to establish their Deaconess training programme
"Florence Nightingale had the greatest respect for both groups, hailing "Every attempt to train in practical activity all female missionaries"... Her interest was no doubt particularly stimulated by the fact that some of them (in other Mildmay Institutions) specialised in nursing and so were among some of the first trainee nurses in the country"
D. Taylor-Thompson, 'Mildmay'. page 8
When this popular reference work was published in the early years of the twentieth century, Mildmay was already well established enough to merit a substantial entry.
Written at a moment when the Mission was at the height of its activity, before the First World War, before the NHS, decades before the AIDS crisis that would define Mildmay's modern identity, it offers a vivid contemporary portrait of the institution and the people who ran it. The four summaries below draw on that entry.
Unidentified Mildmay Deaconess, serving in East London, 19th century
By 1910, when Every Woman's Encyclopaedia described the Mildmay Institutions, the Mission had grown to over 220 workers, deaconesses, nurses, probationers, and trainees for overseas work.
The encyclopaedia traces the founding story from William Pennefather's vicarage in Barnet to his move to St Jude's in Mildmay Park in 1864, where the training of women for Christian and philanthropic work was formally established.
It draws a direct line from Kaiserswerth - the Rhine institution that had also shaped Florence Nightingale - to the Pennefathers' decision to revive the ancient office of deaconess. The compound at Mildmay Park is described in some detail: the Conference Hall, the storerooms of donated clothing, and the weekly sewing class where poor widows were paid sixpence for their work, with hot coffee and buns.
The encyclopaedia describes a rigorous training programme covering physiology, nursing, tropical diseases, surgical work, cooking, laundry, and sol-fa singing, alongside theological study and hands-on parochial work in London parishes.
Candidates began with a month's probation before spending up to two years in the student house, followed by a further two or three years working in the mission before being admitted as full Mildmay deaconesses. Admission was marked by a simple dedication service. There were no vows - the expectation, as the directress Mrs Tottenham put it, was that "love and devotion will keep the residents at their appointed tasks."
The Deaconess House, adjoining the Conference Hall, housed around forty deaconesses. The encyclopaedia describes a life of considerable discipline but also community: each deaconess had her own room, the house had a large drawing room with writing tables, and the rules were described as simple.
In practice, the work was relentless; forty to fifty home visits a week in some of the poorest districts of London, alongside mothers' meetings, girls' and boys' clubs, and devotional duties. Some deaconesses worked further afield: in Malta, Dublin, Oxford, Jamaica, Toronto, and Liverpool. Those who could afford it contributed £50 a year for their board; those who could not were accepted according to their circumstances.
The Mildmay Mission Hospital on Austin Street, Bethnal Green, had fifty beds for destitute patients and held medical missions twice a week, averaging 150 attendances, with up to 100 outpatients on other days receiving dressings and treatment. The encyclopaedia illustrates the scale of poverty the hospital served through individual cases - a family of nine found without food, fire, or light; a deaconess arriving to find children who "never worry me for food, miss, if I haven't any for them."
It closes with a note on funding: the Mission required £25,000 a year, raised almost entirely through voluntary donations, including, the encyclopaedia notes, an annual rug sent to the Mildmay sale by a 67-year-old woman earning four shillings and sixpence a week.
'The Pennefathers' missionary projects included a Men's Night School, Sewing classes for widows, a Flower Mission, a Lads' Institute, a Servants' training home, and a Missionary training home. William took some inspiration from a Lutheran "Order of Deaconesses" in Germany'.
D.Taylor-Thompson, 'Mildmay- The Birth and rebirth of a unique Hospital'. London, 1992
Further reading
Mildmay, The Story of the Deaconesses Institutions
Harriet J Cooke, 1892
The most detailed contemporary account of the early Mildmay Institutions, written in the year the new hospital opened. Cooke had direct access to the people and community she describes.
"The object of this book is to set before those who are interested in the 'deaconess movement' and Institution which for more than a third of a century has been sending out light and help from North london into the darkest districts of this great Metropolis..."
View and download this book from the Internet Archive
1892:
A purpose-built hospital
Staff and visitors the main entrance of the 1892 hospital
The portico of the main entrance of the 1892 hospital
The ceremonial laying of Mildmay's foundation stone, 1890
With the Old Nichol slums facing demolition by the London County Council, a new location was chosen: Austin Street, on the corner of Hackney Road in Bethnal Green.
A foundation stone was laid in 1890, and in 1892 the first purpose-built Mildmay Mission Hospital opened its doors; with fifty beds in three wards: male, female, and children.
Emily Goodwin became its first Matron. The hospital asked no letters of admission and turned no one away on grounds of faith, though prayers were said on the wards and biblical verses painted on the walls. In practice, it became a lifeline for the large Jewish immigrant community in the East End, a remarkable detail given the fervently evangelical Christian ethos that underpinned it.
Women's ward, Mildmay Mission Hospital, early 1900s
A postcard of Mildmay Mission Hospital, posted in 1907. Donated to Mildmay in April 2021
A database of records of nurses who trained and/or worked at Mildmay throughout its long history, which is being added to continuously as new information becomes available.
'Emily Goodwin, first Matron of Mildmay Mission Hospital, 1892
Do you have records, photographs, or memories connected to nursing at Mildmay? We'd love to hear from you.
Mary Richards: a nurse's story
Mary Richards entered training at the Mildmay Mission Hospital in April 1931 and left after completing her training and receiving her certificate in May 1934. Mary was from Brixworth, Northants and aged 22 years when she started her training; she had previously learned dressmaking, housewifery, and cookery, all skills previously required by women who became Mildmay Deaconesses prior to Nurse training becoming an option.
Mary had worked in a girls village home for nearly two years, and her religious faith was described as C of E. Many applicants to train as nurses at Mildmay were also Church Missionary Society candidates. Her report describes her as 'A kind, reliable and capable nurse.'
Mary returned in 1938-9 working for six months as a Nursing Sister, for the last eight days she was in charge of the male ward, Mathieson.
Mildmay Hospital nursing badge awarded to Mary Richards on completing her training in 1934
With thanks to Sarah Rogers for this information and the nursing badge image.
Show your support for Mildmay
In 2022, we created this commemorative lapel badge, based on the original Mildmay nursing badge, to mark 145 years since the opening of the first Mildmay Medical Mission in 1877.
By purchasing a badge you are making an invaluable financial contribution towards the running of our charitable hospital while at the same time, helping to raise awareness of, and demonstrating your commitment to our cause and support of our work.
1938:
The Hospital with a Difference!
This fundraising booklet was produced around 1939 to support a new extension to the hospital, and records a visit by Queen Mary in 1938.
It gives a vivid picture of Mildmay in its pre-NHS years: a community anchor, drawing support from local businesses, churches, and donors of all backgrounds.
The adverts at the back, from paint suppliers to laundry services, reveal the network of local businesses that supported Mildmay and speak to the hospital's deep-rootedness in East End life.
Slideshow
Front cover
Front cover
Pages from the booklet
Queen Mary visits the hospital in 1938
An advert from the back of the booket - Advance Laundries Ltd - 'Launderers to this Hospital'
Read Jennie Jones's story and her connection to this booklet
This booklet was sent to us by someone who has a story about their aunt, who worked at Mildmay.
1948:
Joining the NHS
Mathieson Ward. A slide from Bert Miller's Archive
On 5 July 1948, the National Health Service came into being. Mildmay joined the NHS that year, incorporated into the North East Metropolitan Regional Board's Central Group of Hospitals. It transferred to the East London Group in 1966, and in 1974 became part of the Tower Hamlets Health District.
For over three decades, Mildmay operated as an NHS hospital, continuing to train nurses and serve the community of the East End.
But the economics of the NHS were not kind to small hospitals. By 1980, with fewer than 200 beds, Mildmay was deemed uneconomic. The process of running it down began. In 1982, it was closed.
