At the outbreak of WW2 the headquarters of the Thames Motor Cruiser Club in the Hampton Court Hotel were commandeered for use as an annexe by the Bearsted Memorial Hospital.  It opened in 1939 as a maternity home with 30 beds.

In 1947 the first phase of the building works for the parent hospital in Stoke Newington was finally completed, but the annex was maintained as the new building had only 32 beds.

In the 1950s the Bearstead Memorial Hospital requested permission to complete its building works so that the annexe could be closed.  The North-East Metropolitan Hospital Board decided there were sufficent maternity beds in the area and therefore such work was not of the highest priority.  Thus the Hampton Court annexe was retained; without it the Hospital would have insufficient beds to maintain the midwifery training school (the Central Midwives Board regarded 50 occupied beds as a minimum for training purposes).

The annexe at Hampton Court became a very popular and highly respected maternity home in its own right for the local population.  It served women of all denominations and in fact by the 1960s only about 1% of its patients were Jewish.

Although located in the south west of London, it was in the anomalous position of being managed by the North-East Metropolitan Hospital Board, the same Board which managed its parent hospital in Stoke Newington (which itself was geographically within the area of the North-West Metropolitan Hospital Board).  The Board's decision to close the annexe in 1968 came abruptly.  The local community was shocked and outraged, especially as considerable sums had been spent on modernization, including a new operating theatre.

Despite a great number of representation from such organizations as the Richmond-upon-Thames Council, the Teddington and Hampton Women Citizens' Association, the Strawberry Hill Residents' Association and local GPs, clergymen, social workers and others, and a public petition with nearly 8000 signatures, no reprieve was given.

Despite being an excellent and much-loved Hospital, it closed in 1969, within six months of the Board's decision.  Services were transferred to other local hospitals.

The building from the east

The building from the west.

The early Victorian building, once owned by the Crown Estate, has been an inn, a hotel, a motor yacht club, a military hospital, a maternity hospital and a retirement home.  It is now a luxury development of 26 apartments.

References

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com (1954)
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com (1969)