Randolph Wemyss Memorial Hospital
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| Original front with gardens | The hospital today (2009) |
The Randolph Wemyss Memorial Hospital is celebrating it's centenery in 2009.
In November 1907 Randolph Wemyss spoke at a public meeting in Buckhaven about his idea for providing a local hospital for the treatment of accident cases from the Wemyss Coal Company mines. Injured miners, and indeed members of the public in need of hospital care, had to be taken to Kirkcaldy or even to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Sadly, Randolph Wemyss died in July 1908, before he could develop his idea further. His widow, Lady Eva Wemyss decided that she would go ahead with building a hospital as a memorial to her husband, ‘whose conception it had been’. She decided that the hospital should be open to patients from the whole community, greatly extending the original plan.
Lady Eva donated a sum of around £10,000 (equivalent to £900,000 today) for the building of the hospital, but many of the fixtures, fittings and equipment were provided by donations from well-known local people and businesses.
Government funding did not exist for healthcare such as the RandolphWemyss Memorial Hospital until the NHS was created in 1948. Funds for running the hospital and paying the staff had to be raised yearly. Much of this was done by public subscription by local miners and other workers. Huge sums were also raised by fundraising fairs, magazine subscriptions and other events.
Three Important Phases
There have been three important phases in the development of the hospital over the last hundred years, which show a clear relationship to changes within the local community.
Phase One
The original hospital was designed by a Fifer, Alexander Tod. Starting out as a carpenter, Alexander worked on important buildings in the second part of the 19th century. These included Pilkington’s Barclay Church in Edinburgh and the Normand Road U.P. Church in Dysart, where he was Inspector of Works. Amongst other buildings designed by Tod are St. Adrian’s Parish Church in West Wemyss and Coaltown of Wemyss Primary School.
He was later appointed Master of Works to the Wemyss Estates, carrying out extensive building and design work for the family.
After his death in 1917, he was succeeded in the position by his son Alexander Stewart Tod. The family name of Tod continues to be connected to the Wemyss family and architectural practice in Scotland.
In a listed building report by Historic Scotland it is described as a ‘7 bay hospital in Scots Renaissance style’ and is built of white harl and red sandstone. It displays some interesting features, including carved stone details, inscriptions and a striking clock tower (the clock itself was gifted by Charles Carlow of the Fife Coal Company).
When it opened in 1909, the hospital served a growing population in the area, in particular, the mining community. Before this, accident cases had to be taken to Edinburgh to be treated and it was the wish of Randolph Wemyss to provide the parish with its own hospital for this purpose.
The hospital quickly outgrew its function as a treatment centre for injured miners and became more of a general hospital for the community as a whole.
The original building included 2 main wards, an emergency ward, an operating room and an x-ray room.
Phase Two
The second important phase for the hospital came in the 1960s. The number of people over 65 in Fife doubled in the previous thirty years, so the provision of care for the elderly became a priority. As a result, a geriatric unit with 60 additional beds and a physiotherapy unit were built in 1964.
The total cost of the extension was £136,000 (£2m at today’s prices) and was part of a wider investment in improving medical services across Fife carried out by the South Eastern Regional Hospital Board. This included the new LynebankHospital in Dunfermline and the second phase of development at the VictoriaHospital in Kirkcaldy.
The new extension opened several months late on the 6th January 1965, a fact not unnoticed by the national and local press at the time.
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Miss Helen Peattie - Matron for 12 years, retiring in 1977, after a 40 year career in nursing |
Phase Three
After a full NHS review of services between 2002 and 2004, a multi-phase development of the hospital was carried out over the next few years. This major refurbishment was completed at a cost of £4.45 million and was opened on the 16th June 2008 by Nicola Sturgeon, MSP and Health Secretary. The Randolph Wemyss Memorial hospital has transformed over the past 100 years, from one man’s vision of a hospital for injured miners to a state-of-the-art centre to meet the health needs of the community in the 21st century.
New services include a men’s health clinic, a sexual health clinic and a Maggie’s Centre Outreach facility for local cancer sufferers. An Education Centre with links to the University of St. Andrews offers medical students training in a range of community healthcare issues.
Photographs showing facets of the original building are given in Hospital gallery- original, with the views of the new extension and facilities available by clicking on Hospital gallery - modern. The photographs will be shown in a new window. A link is provided to return to this page.