| Administrative History | Stephen Cottage Hospital, Dufftown, Moray was built, endowed, and for many years run, with money donated by Sir George Stephen (1829-1921), later Lord Mount Stephen. In 1888, after a visit to Dufftown, Mount Stephen announced his intention of gifting a cottage hospital for the use of the people of his native district - the parishes of Mortlach and Glenrinnes. The 10-bed Stephen Cottage Hospital opened on 5 August 1890.
The hospital was extended in 1900 to provide quarters for a district nurse (this post also being funded by Mount Stephen), thus making it one of the few places in the country where hospital and district nursing staff came under the same authority. A spacious operating theatre was added in 1908 and during the First World War the hospital treated many wounded and convalescent soldiers shipped home from France.
With the coming of the National Health Service in 1948 Stephen Cottage Hospital lost its independence and came under the control of Upper Banffshire Hospitals Board of Management, functioning as a GP Medical and Maternity Hospital. In 1964 the hospital became part of the Banffshire Hospitals Board, then from 1974 it was under the control of the West District of Grampian Health Board.
For many years the hospital provided the main maternity facility in the area with well over 2000 births taking place there before the unit's closure in 1979. In the early 1980s the hospital was almost doubled in size with the addition of a 9-bed geriatric unit, built to replace the County Hospital which was closed in 1984 after almost 80 years' service. By 2001 all medical facilities in Dufftown were concentrated on the Stephen Hospital site. Dufftown Health Centre was built and opened there in 1976 and the hospital itself was refurbished at a cost of £500,000, giving it a total of twenty-one beds. |
| Description | Minutes, 1889 - 1948; financial records: ledgers and cashbooks, 1889 - 1949; patient registers, 1890 - 1961 (1935 - 1948 missing); miscellaneous, including regulations, visitors book, etc., 1889 - 1946; photographs, 1889 - 1948. |