Lambert Hospital
Lambert Hospital, built in 1890, it still survives as a cottage hospital.
The following information is supplied by Cooper Harding, curator of Thirsk Museum
William Lambert senior was a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, born 1786, and
served as an Army surgeon with the Grenadier Guards during the Napoleonic
Wars. He came to Thirsk about 1815 and in 1816
married first the daughter of Dr. Jonah Wasse, to whose practice he
succeeded. After the death of his first wife, Lambert married Ann Sayer, a
wealthy spinster who owned a fine villa in Sowerby which became their home.
William senior retired from practice and died in 1857. William senior's son
by his first marriage born in 1817, William Jonah Lambert, also became a
physician and married a lady from Manchester, Sarah Pollard, daughter of a
wealthy cotton manufacturer and niece of a former pupil of William Lambert
senior, Dr James Whitehead, who became a very successful figure in the
medical world. Unfortunately William junior suffered from tuberculosis and
died on the Isle of Wight in 1853, leaving his wife Sarah with a young son,
yet another William!!. The widowed Sarah returned to Manchester where she
lived with her uncle James until his death in 1885. Dr. Whitehead had no
children of his own and Sarah inherited his whole estate, worth £45,000 - a
considerable fortune in those days. Her son, too, died young (TB again)
leaving Sarah Lambert the last of the Lamberts. She returned to Sowerby,
devoting the rest of her life to good works - the principal charity being
the endowment of the Lambert Memorial Hospital It is named after three
members of the family - her father-in-law (William senior), her husband
(William Jonah) and her son (William)
