Cowley Road Hospital
Originally the hospital was the Oxford City Workhouse, founded in 1865. It became a Public Assistance Institution in 1929 and was transferred to the Ministry of Health under the National Health Act 1946. In some records it appears as 205a Cowley Road. In 1951 the first geriatric day hospital in the country was opened on the site.
It was under the United Oxford Hospitals until 1974, when responsibility passed to Oxfordshire Area Health Authority (Teaching). The hospital functioned as a geriatric unit from 1958 until closure in about 1983.
Records of Cowley Road Hospital
- Extracts from minutes 1948-1956
- Registers of deaths 1948-1982
- Staff appointments [probably Cowley Road Hospital] 1940-1948
- Records of Cowley Road Day Hospital 1958-1980
It is likely that the workhouse records were destroyed before the transfer to the NHS; an oral tradition remembers a bonfire in the hospital grounds. The sole exception was a baptism register of the Oxford Workhouse 1843-1865, 1872-1893, now held byOxfordshire History Centre.
There may be information (post 1948) in the records of the United Oxford Hospitals and Oxfordshire Health Authority
Last updated: 8 August, 2022