The Kendray Hospital is a health facility on Doncaster Road, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. It is managed by South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
History
The hospital was the gift of Mrs Ann Alderson Lambert, the last surviving daughter of Francis Kendray, a linen manufacturer. It was initially conceived as a fever hospital and the foundation stone was laid by the Mayor of Barnsley in March 1889. Barnsley Corporation provided the eleven acre site on Measborough Hill.
[ Barnsley Chronicle, 20 March 1889] The hospital was officially opened in February 1890.
[ Barnsley Chronicle, 1 March 1890] In 1892 77 cases of
smallpox were admitted to the hospital but 21 of these cases were attributed to an infected tailor who had overpowered his nurse and escaped the hospital stark naked.
[ Barnsley Chronicle, 19 September 1975] Smallpox had largely died out by 1894 and admissions for
scarlet fever became more common. It joined the National Health Service in 1948.
In 1965 Kendray officially ceased to be an infectious diseases hospital.
[ Barnsley Chronicle, 19 September 1975] In 1979 it was announced that £6 million was to be spent on the hospital to provide facilities for the mentally ill and severely mentally infirm old people.
[ Barnsley Chronicle, 12 October 1979] A new biomechanics suite, intended to improve diagnosis and treatment for patients with lower limb ailments, opened in 2014.
