On this day in 1888

With one day to go until its official opening, staff were making sure everything was ready for the Victoria College Hospital, on Candie Road, to welcome its first patients. It was declared operational the following day – 1 May – by the Bailiff, Sir Edgar MacCulloch.

As its name might suggest, the hospital was much smaller than the then General Hospital, having just five beds accommodated in a rented house. The men’s ward, on the ground floor, had two beds, which had been named Willie and Bankipore after the people in whose memory they had been given, according to a report in The Star of 28 April 1888. The women’s ward, upstairs, had beds named The Dobree, Lady Carey and Indiana, as well as a cot.

A hospital for the needy

The hospital had been set up to cater for those who could not afford to meet the costs of their own treatment and, said The Star, “admittance is obtained by a certificate, signed by a Doctor and counter-signed by an annual subscriber or donor – who shall guarantee for the patient’s weekly payment, which we are informed are only 3s or 4s per week for the labouring classes.”

The hospital grew quickly, and it moved to new premises in 1891. At the outbreak of the First World War, by which point it had more than two dozen beds, it dropped the word ‘Cottage’ from its name. Victoria Hospital closed at the start of the Occupation, and, following liberation it was decided not to reopen the facility. Its buildings were sold to the States of Guernsey and the proceeds used to establish a charitable fund that would continue to provide financial assistance to patients unable to meet their own medical expenses.

Guernsey’s main hospital is now the Princess Elizabeth Hospital, which was opened by its namesake, later to become Queen Elizabeth II, when she visited the Channel Islands in 1949. The private ward at the Princess Elizabeth Hospital is called the Victoria Wing.

 

...and on this day in 1979

The theft of a boat from St Peter Port alerted authorities to a pair of potential murderers.

The 42ft luxury yacht, called Memel, had been moored in Guernsey by its German owner, who was holidaying on the island. Nobody saw who had taken it, but a white Citroen car was abandoned close to the site of the theft.

The car had been seen leaving the scene of a murder in Surrey the previous week. It was then spotted on the ferry from Weymouth.

Murder suspects

The chief suspects were antique-dealing brothers, Jason and Nicholas Richards, both in their early 20s. The victim, Thames Water engineer John George, had been tied up and shot in woodland near Dunsfold. The suspects were also being sought in connection with two armed raids on restaurants using a .22 rifle and a sub-machine gun.

Interpol, the navy and French coastguard were all called in to help with the search for the £60,000 boat, which had sufficient fuel onboard to sail 600 miles.

That wasn’t enough to get them as far as their parents’ house in Minorca, but Surrey police nonetheless travelled to the island to interview them.

Interception, arrest and trial

The brothers’ escape didn’t last long. They ran into trouble on a sandbank off the coast of Brittany and were arrested by three lorry-loads of French police.

The Foreign Office immediately put in an application for their extradition to the UK. Magistrates at Guildford approved the warrant 10 days later, but it still took until 22 August for them to be flown back to Britain.

When the trial reached court, the brothers pleaded not guilty. They claimed they’d gone for a walk and returned to their car to find some of their clothes missing. They hadn’t reported the theft to police because their illegal firearms were still in the vehicle. When they repacked their car, they noticed that the barrels of the weapons had been sawn off. At that point they decided to leave the country, taking the weapons with them.

They claimed to have first heard about John George’s death on the stolen yacht’s radio.

Ultimately the brothers turned against each other in court, and their claims of innocence were unsuccessful. They were jailed for life on 8 May 1980.