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Original Text (Annotation: EPW045557 / 2107777)
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River Ambulance Service (RAS), North Wharf Receiving Station, Managers Road. One of the Metropolitan Asylums Board's (MAB) three places (the other two were at Rotherhithe and Fulham) in London to which smallpox victims would be brought during the epidemic at the turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries, for onward transport by ambulance ships ('Red Cross', 'White Cross', 'Geneva Cross', 'Albert Victor' and 'Maltese Cross') to Dartford. Three hospital ships were moored there from 1882, (Atlas [men's wards], Endymion [administration, kitchen and laundry] and Castalia [women's wards]) being replaced by the Long Reach Hospital on adjacent land in 1902. The hospital ships were taken out of service and scrapped in 1904. Per the 'Lost Hospitals of London' site ( https://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/northwharf.html ): 'The North Wharf Receiving Station opened in 1884, at the start of a smallpox epidemic. It served the central, north and east regions of London. MAB had built a new roadway from Cold Harbour to Bridge Road in order to facilitate easier access for the land ambulances. The road was named Managers Road, after the managers of MAB. The Receiving Station had an examination room and an isolation ward for patients too sick to be transferred by river ambulance to Long Reach. Other land works were postponed while priority was given to building of the pier, which opened in 1885, just as the epidemic subsided. As the number of smallpox cases declined, the service was reorganised in 1913. The North Wharf was used only for smallpox patients, while the South Wharf at Rotherhithe dealt with general fever cases. By 1921 the North Wharf had 9 beds. In 1930 the LCC took over administrative control from MAB. By this time the river service was rarely used, most patients being transferred by road. The service closed in May 1930 and, by 1933, the steamers had been sold. The pier was demolished in 1936.' See images EPW001410, EPW024256, EPW046833 and EPW015774 http://dartfordhospitalhistories.org.uk/long-reach/long-reach-introduction/ and for a photograph of the three original hospital ships - https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/L0006809EB.jpg/full/full/0/default.jpg '
