A special artifact comes home
As many St. Ives locals know, the Edward Hain Memorial Hospital was founded in the name of Captain Edward ‘Teddy’ Hain, who was killed at Gallipoli in WWI on he day he was due to ship home: November 11th, 1915. His grieving parents felt a hospital would be a fitting tribute to their only son, to serve the people in the town they loved. His father’s business, the Edward Hain Steamship Company, allotted funds to purchase a suitable building.
At that time, similar small ‘cottage’ hospitals – so-called because the first one actually was in a cottage – were springing up all over England. Soon, a building was found at Albany Terrace: a private home which was bought and kitted out as a hospital.
Passing the Mantle
Sadly, Teddy’s father, Sir Edward Hain – knighted for his services to the shipping industry – died on Sept. 20th, 1917 after a breakdown, some say caused by the loss of his only son. He never saw the project completed; but his wife, Lady Catherine Hain, took up the mantle. She officially opened the hospital on April 8th, 1920. According to local press at the time, she ‘. . . named it the Edward Hain Memorial Cottage Hospital.’
Lady Catherine gave a generous endowment for its operation in her husband’s name. Their sole surviving child, Kate, who at the time was mother of a year-old son – also called Edward and known as ‘Teddy’ – would become one of the hospital’s first three trustees.
Almost 30 years later, in 1948, the mantle passed again to the newly-formed NHS. Kate Hain’s trusteeship came to an end. Like many similar hospitals over England, the Edward Hain continued to run in the capable hands of NHS doctors and nurses.
The passing of time
In the 1960s, the League of Friends of the Edward Hain Memorial Hospital formed to raise funds. Its mission is stated on the Charity Foundation website as being to support the health care of St. Ives’ residents and ‘perpetuate the name of Edward Hain.’ Over the years, they supplied many upgrades for the hospital including a new X-Ray machine and a day room for the doctors’ and nurses’ use.
Then, in 2016, the NHS closed the hospital’s wards. Four years later the building was declared ‘surplus to requirement’, and in 2021 was put up for sale. The rest is recent history: the former hospital’s Friends campaigned to purchase the building in order to create a new health and wellbeing centre in Teddy’s name. The Hains’ original purpose for the hospital came full circle on September 9th 2023, when the new Centre’s launch was celebrated.
Meanwhile, that year-old son of Kate Hain’s grew up and had 5 children. In the 1960’s Edward Hain VI moved to Switzerland, where he lived for the rest of his life. He visited St. Ives from time to time, including as Guest of Honour at the opening of the revamped Hain room at the Harbour Museum in 2004, where he was accompanied by his eldest daughter and her son, and his younger son Philip. He died, aged 92, in 2011.
Finding the Key
Philip packed up his dad’s flat, and shipped his belongings back to England. Amongst 50 years of books, papers, pictures, and memorabilia, was a small box. Inside, hidden beneath a few odds and ends, was a beautiful key. It was inscribed, ‘Presented to Lady Hain on the occasion of the opening of the Edward Hain Memorial Hospital, St Ives Cornwall, April 8th 1920.’
It is this key that Philip presented to Lynne Isaacs, Chair of the new Edward Hain Centre, at the opening ceremony last weekend, 103 years after the opening of the former hospital.
We are thrilled to be entrusted with it as its new keepers. On permanent loan from Philip, it will be kept in a presentation case at the Centre – which, as Philip said, is its true home. Although doors and locks have long been changed, the key connects past and present, and is an extraordinary piece of memorabilia, touched by the hand of Teddy Hain’s mother, whose son’s name continues as a memorial to all St. Ives fallen sons.
Footnote: Teddy’s sister Kate was a trustee of the EH Memorial Hospital from its inception until its takeover by the NHS in 1948. Her granddaughter Kit is now a trustee of the EH Centre, and proud to be following in her grandmother’s footsteps.
Many thanks to Colin Higgs for use of his photos, including of the key.
