Prince of Wales Hospital

From School of Nursing to Local Hospital

Ever wondered why the site of the old Prince of Wales Hospital building at Tottenham Green is called ‘Deaconess Court’?

This name is in homage to the building’s original role as the Evangelical Protestant Deaconesses’ Institute.

(Prince of Wales Hospital with Tottenham Green East in the foreground, c.1940. From the collections and © Bruce Castle Museum and Archive)

Founded in 1869 by Dr Michael Laseron (a German-Jew who converted to Christianity), the Deaconesses themselves were voluntary nurses and cared for the sick as well as trained nurses. They were very distinctive in their all-black uniforms. The young trainees first came from Dr Laseron’s orphanage but soon included young girls from local families.

You can find out about just some of the pioneering women who trained at the Deaconess Institute on Haringey’s women’s history map of Tottenham, number 67.

You can also read more here and see photographs from the collections of Bruce Castle Museum and Archive about the Prince of Wales Hospital and other hospitals in Haringey.

The Prince of Wales Hospital and the Carnival 

The voluntary Deaconesses were replaced in 1899 by paid and certificated nurses. The Institute became the district hospital, called Tottenham Hospital. Becoming a more general hospital in 1907, serving a wider area, it then became known as the Prince of Wales Hospital. The prominent heraldic emblem of the three feathers of the Prince of Wales can still be seen today on the front balcony of the surviving building.

(Nurses on the balcony of the Prince of Wales Hospital, 1914. From the collections and © Bruce Castle Museum and Archive) 

Before the establishment of a National Health Service in 1948, the Prince of Wales Hospital had to look for other sources of funding. In addition to local philanthropy, there was the annual carnival that raised money to support the hospital providing essential care was accessible for as many people as possible in the community. This was the origin of the Tottenham Carnival that we ourselves might remember today – it has had different manifestations over the generations since the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The NHS

From 1948, the story of nursing changes with the establishment of the NHS and the new arrivals of women and men from the former Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean, South Asia, Africa as well as Ireland. They were recruited to help and work for the new National Health Service. Many stories have been collected nationally about those working for the NHS over the last almost 80 years.

Stage for Activism and On Film

The Prince of Wales was the focal point for union activism and campaigning by locals during the 1980s when its future was under threat. Despite local pressure to keep it open, the hospital was forced to close its doors in 1985. 

(Front page of NET (North East Tottenham Community News), March 1983. From the collections at Bruce Castle Museum and Archive).

Not long after its closure, the frontage of the Prince of Wales featured in film director Ken Loach’s 1991 film ‘Riff-Raff’. Acting favourites Robert Caryle (in his first starring role as ‘Stevie’) and Ricky Tomlinson appeared in the film. The storyline follows Stevie, a Glaswegian recently released from prison, who moves to London to find work on a construction site. It focuses on the poor conditions experienced by labourers and the trials of working-class life under the Thatcher government.

The (then uninhabited) Prince of Wales was mocked up to look like the building site featured on screen, as Stevie’s character works with other builders to turn the place into luxury flats. Remarkably, as the BFI puts it, ‘In a life-imitates-art twist, this was exactly what happened not long after the film was released.’ (Read the full article from the BFI). Sure enough, the former Prince of Wales hospital was converted into residences in 1993, which still occupy the site today with the impressive and recognisable original hospital frontage preserved. 

In 2023 the former Prince of Wales was the focus again on screen for ITV’s ‘Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace’. The poignant episode focuses on a woman who was abandoned as a 10-week-old baby, left inside the matron’s office in the Prince of Wales Hospital in 1968. Bruce Castle Museum and Archive was able to show the woman the newspaper article reporting about her being found at the hospital. It was a very moving moment: it was the first time she had ever seen the report of her as a foundling. And it was the earliest photograph she had seen of herself as a baby. 

You can also check out this newsreel from 1932, part of the collections at Bruce Castle Museum and Archive and freely available thanks to London Screen Archives, and a write up about the hospital.