The Witton smallpox hospital

On film · 1967

The day the hospital was burned

British Pathé’s cameraman filmed a policeman at the gates and the notice “Danger — Smallpox Isolation Hospital — Keep Out”, the press and police waiting outside, a civil defence vehicle and a fire engine going in, and a group of people with banners protesting. Then the firemen set the buildings alight, one after another, until the whole hospital was burning.

More old film from around Kingstanding: Kingstanding on film.

Why it was burned

Witton was Birmingham’s first-line smallpox hospital: about 1,000 patients passed through it. When the country’s new national isolation hospital opened at Catherine-de-Barnes in 1966, Witton was no longer needed. Its last patients left that spring, and when the caretaker resigned the ten empty buildings were left behind a wall that children could climb. They did — and someone who had watched them from the top deck of a passing bus reported it.

Nobody could be certain the smallpox virus had gone. Birmingham’s Medical Officer of Health decided the only safe answer was fire. On 3 May 1967, a day chosen because the wind was blowing from the south, away from the city centre, firemen who had all been vaccinated and wore protective clothing used four tons of fuel to create heat fierce enough to sterilise the site — and burned the hospital to the ground.

Nine days later the hospital was debated in the House of Commons. The Ministry of Health reported that scientists at Porton had tested 26 samples from the wards and drains and found no clear evidence of the virus. The minister also mentioned that, in the worry of those weeks, some people had been afraid even to buy meat from a shop near the hospital.

The hospital’s story

1. 1894Built by Birmingham as an isolation hospital for smallpox, in open country at Witton.
2. 1930sThe new Kingstanding and Perry Common estates grow up all around it.
3. 1962Used during Birmingham’s smallpox outbreak.
4. Jan–Feb 1966The last patients are quarantined here; the last is discharged on 4 May 1966.
5. 1966The caretaker leaves and the empty buildings are left unguarded. Local children get in.
6. 3 May 1967Firemen burn the hospital to the ground, watched by police, press and protesters.
7. 12 May 1967The hospital is debated in the House of Commons.

The hospital stood on the land now bounded by College Road, Brackenbury Road and Plumstead Road. See it on our map.