This page has a number of data tables and charts relating to voluntary hospitals in the south-west of England, to enable comparisons to be made with Dorset County Hospital. These are:

• Monthly in-patient admissions and admissions per 1000 of the population in 1851
• Patient numbers and patient-to-nurse ratios in 1851
• Average numbers and costs of patients, c. 1859
• Numbers of patients in the 1861 census and hospital deaths during the year 1861

In the tables and charts below, Hampshire County Hospital (also known as Winchester County Hospital) is referred to as ‘Hants County Hospital’.

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Monthly in-patient admissions and admissions per 1000 of the population in 1851

The following table shows the number of in-patients admitted each month in 1851 in three hospitals. The Dorset County Hospital data come from the admissions register. The Hants County Hospital data come from figures published weekly in one of three Hampshire newspapers (the Advertiser, the Chronicle or the Telegraph). Similarly the Salisbury Infirmary data come from figures published weekly in the Salisbury and Winchester Journal.

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The above data is illustrated in the chart below:

The following table shows the number of in-patient admissions during 1851 per 1000 of the population in the registration county. Note that registration counties are not exactly coterminous with historic counties. For instance, Lyme Regis in Dorset falls within the Axminster registration district and is therefore in the registration county of Devon.

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Patient numbers and patient-to-nurse ratios in 1851

The data for the following table and chart come from the 1851 census. Hospital matrons in the 1850s were domestic housekeepers rather than senior nurses, and therefore they have been excluded from the nursing figures.

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The above data is summarised in the following chart:

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Average numbers and costs of patients, c. 1859

Extracted from the Medical Times & Gazette, 24 March 1860, page 306 – it is likely that the figures relate to 1859.

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Numbers of patients in the 1861 census and hospital deaths during the year 1861

The following table shows the number of patients in a range of hospitals in the south-west on census night (8 April) in 1861. It also shows the deaths registered in each hospital during the whole of that year. It has been compiled from tables in the Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages in England (published in 1863). 

The mortality per cent calculation is the same as that used by the Registrar-General (see page 205 of the report): “The statement of the mortality of any One Hospital is qualified by the fact that the mortality is not deduced from the division of deaths by the average number of patients, but by the number on one particular day”.

*Bath General Hospital was the mineral water hospital.