Barts Health Archives-Barts Health NHS Trust

Welcome to our archives

The archives cared for by Barts Health are amongst the largest and most important hospital collections in the UK, with records filling over 2.5km of shelving. We hold records dating from 1137, shortly after the foundation of our oldest hospital, St Bartholomew's, to the current day. They include records relating to staff, patients, buildings and management of the hospitals in the current Barts Health group, as well as numerous other hospitals, institutions, charities, organisations and individuals relating to health care and training in the City and East London. The majority of this material is normally available for research, though some more recent material may be restricted under the Data Protection Act.

Archive appointments may be booked between 9.30am and 4pm, Tuesday to Friday, and must be booked at least one week in advance. Documents must be ordered in advance of your visit.

For more information on what to expect when you visit, please read the ‘Visiting the Archives’ section below carefully before contacting us to book an appointment. It is possible that we may have to cancel or reschedule your appointment at short notice due to staff absence or changing public health guidance, so please check this webpage and our Twitter feed for the latest information.

If you would like to support our work, please consider making a donation to support the work of Barts Health NHS Trust Archives and Museums. Please click here to donate. Want to keep up to date on collections news and activity? Click here to join our newsletter mailing list.

Visiting the archives

Barts Health NHS Trust Archives is located in a hospital building. As a non-clinical space, there is no requirement to wear a face covering or practice social distancing in the archives, but masks must continue to be worn in all clinical buildings. Please also be mindful that we are located on a hospital site and respect the personal choices of others who may wish to continue to wear a mask, and observe the appropriate guidance on other areas of the hospital site. Please do not visit the archives if you are experiencing any symptoms of infectious illness eg Covid-19 or norovirus.

The archives searchroom is located on the ground floor of the Kenton and Lucas Block at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, accessed using entrance Kenton and Lucas entrance C.

Access to the searchroom is by prior appointment only. Appointments are subject to availability.
Appointments are usually for one person only except by prior arrangement. Please let us know if you will be accompanied by someone acting in a support or carer role or if you have any additional access requirements.
Requests for appointments should be made at least one week in advance. Same day requests will not be possible. You will need to order your documents for consultation at the time of booking; all documents for the following week must be ordered by 12.30pm on the Friday before. You can search our catalogue online to identify material relevant to your research.
Opening hours are 9.30am to 4pm, Tuesday to Friday, with a short closure for lunch between 12:30pm and 1pm.
All users must complete a researcher registration form in advance of their visit. Completion of the form indicates agreement to comply with our Regulations for access to the archives [pdf]
On arrival, please ring the doorbell for the Archives (opposite the door at entrance C) on arrival, so that a staff member can let you in. If you are running late, please call us on 020 3465 7608 or email to inform us.

Searching the archives

To find out more about our archives, search or browse our online catalogue. We can help and advise researchers, so please contact us with your enquiry. We also have a suite of research guides, designed to highlight some of the key research themes across our collections and to tell you where you can find, access and understand the relevant records. This is an expanding resource and we will be adding more guides over time.

We aim to be as helpful as possible, but we do not have the staff resources to carry out detailed research for you.

What we hold

We hold records of over 35 current and former hospitals as well as many organisations, institutions and individuals associated with the hospitals and with health care and health education in London - over 100 individual collections. You can find a full list of archive collections, with links through to the online catalogue, here [pdf] 782KB

View the locations of the hospitals for which we hold records and click through to our catalogue using the map below:

We are continually adding new material to the catalogue, and undertaking conservation work to ensure that the archives can be accessed now and in the future.

In recent years, generous funding from the Wellcome Trust, The Medical College of St Bartholomew’s Hospital Trust, and Barts Charity has enabled us to add thousands more items to our online catalogue. Read more about previous projects The Fight Against Tuberculosis, STIs in East London in the Twentieth Century, and A Study in Specialism on the project blogs.

Accessing archives and archival datasets online

You can search catalogue descriptions of over 70,000 records online, using our online catalogue. Although the majority of the records listed on the catalogue can currently only be consulted through a visit to the archives, afew collections or series of records have been digitised and can be accessed online, as follows:

Images from the St Bartholomew's Hospital Pathology Illustrations collection are available as part of the Wellcome Collection's image catalogue.
Search and browse the Student Registers for St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, 1906-1934 and indexes to earlier students
Search the St Bartholomew's Hospital Journal from 1893 onwards

A few films from our audio visual collections have been digitised and may be viewed at our YouTube channel, alongside short videos produced by the archives team to highlight items and stories from the collections.

The Historic Hospital Admission Records Project (HHARP) is an online database of admission records for four historic children's hospitals, including the Alexandra Hospital for Children with Hip Disease, records of which are held in our collections. The database of admissions for the Alexandra Hospital covers inpatient admissions for the years 1867-1895 The website also features articles on aspects of the hospital’s history, and short biographies of medical staff. Registration is necessary to access the full contents, but is free of charge.

Useful websites

Projects and Events

**Outdoor exhibition: Life and death in the archives, 1123-2023 [coming soon, 10 May-1 Aug 2023]**

In 2023 St Bartholomew’s Hospital celebrates opening its doors to Londoners for 900 years. It is the oldest hospital still running on the same site in England. The hospital’s archives tell the story of this unbroken history. Find out more about our free outdoor exhibition of photography, art and history from the archives and collections of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which will be located at sites in the City of London during summer 2023.

The exhibition is being presented in partnership with the City of London Corporation, as part of its programme of outdoor exhibitions. It is part of a year of programming to mark the landmark anniversary of 900 years since the foundation of St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1123. You can find more information on the wider Barts900 campaign and programme here.

Whipps Cross Voices

Whipps Cross Hospital has been at the heart of the local community for more than a century, providing healthcare through many challenging periods, up to the current pandemic. This is a time of significant change for the hospital, as it moves forward with exciting plans for a new hospital, with more clinical space, able to provide more care on the same day and provide a better experience for patients and staff. It is also an ideal opportunity to capture and preserve histories of the current hospital and its people.

Whipps Cross Voices, supported by Barts Charity, launched in spring 2022 to provide an opportunity for local people, staff and patients to share their thoughts, feelings and memories about Whipps Cross Hospital. Through the project we have captured stories and new collections about the hospital from staff and patients, past and present, and preserved them as a historical resource for the future. We’ve recorded a new oral history collection relating to Whipps Cross, which is now available in the archives for research, and our project volunteers have helped us catalogue and digitise existing material, helping us to make stories of the hospital accessible in new ways in the Trust Archives and on the hospital site. You can find out more about the project by watching the recording of the project launch in March 2022, or check out the project website.

Talks

We do not have any upcoming talks. However, you can view recordings of talks from our 2021 online researcher talks series on our YouTube channel , as well as other video content relating to our collections and to the history and heritage of our hospitals.

Newsletters

In 2023, we launched the Barts Health NHS Trust Archives newsletter, to share updates on recent activities and current projects. Contact us to join our mailing list.

You can view and download previous issues below.

Barts Health NHS Trust Archives Newsletter, Number 1, March 2023 [pdf]

You can also download issues of the Whipps Cross Voices project newsletter, which has provided regular updates on our project at Whipps Cross Hospital.

Barts Health Archives

Search the Barts Health NHS Trust website