St George's Hospital, 1966

(Originally posted 19 October 2022)

For Black History Month 2022, we created a series of four new blog posts. They highlighted new discoveries in our collections and ongoing research relating to Black History in the Wakefield district.

This included a fantastic photo of staff at St George's Hospital, Rothwell. It was taken on a prize-giving day in April 1966.

Photo of a large gathering of staff for prize-giving day at St George's Hospital, Rothwell. Many are dressed in nurse's uniforms, some appear to be doctors, and others are in smart plain-clothes. There are several nurses who are Women of Colour and a male doctor who is potentially also a Person of Colour

This photograph shows how diversity was of increasing importance to the hospital and its workforce in the 1960s. Several People of Colour were chosen to receive awards for their work.

The National Health Service (NHS) was established in 1948. It brought access to hospitals, doctors, nurses and dentists together under one service which was free at the point of delivery for the first time. It was very ambitious. Britain was bombed-out and bruised by the Second World War. A huge injection of skilled workers was needed to rebuild and make the NHS work.

Citizens from across the Commonwealth answered the call for help. The first boat of workers arrived in Britain from Jamaica in 1948. They travelled on the passenger ship Empire Windrush.

Many of the staff members at St George's Hospital lived in the Wakefield District. Sadly, we do not have names or information for most of the people in this photo!

Can you help - do you recognise anyone? Did your relatives, friends or neighbours work at the hospital in the 1960s?

Drop us an email at museums@wakefield.gov.uk - we'd love to hear from you!

With thanks to the Wakefield Council Global Majority Race Equality Network (GMREN) for their comments and feedback.