History

Caroline House, the main care facility at the Colman Centre for Specialist Rehabilitation Services, opened in 1978 by the then Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, Sir Timothy Colman, as a unit for the care of the young chronic sick.  The building is named in memory of Caroline Colman.

Born in 1831 at Letheringsett, Caroline Colman was the eldest of nine children of William Hardy and Sarah Cozens, who changed their surnames by royal licence in 1842 to Cozens-Hardy.  In 1856 she married Jeremiah James Colman, Liberal Member of Parliament for Norwich from 1871-95, its Sheriff in 1862-63 and Mayor in 1867-68.  She lived for the whole of her married life at Carrow House or at the family holiday home Clyffe, Corton, near Lowestoft.  She took a great interest in those who worked for her husband’s Carrow Works and gave much support to him in his civic and parliamentary duties.

The mother of six children, Caroline Colman became closely associated with the work of the Jenny Lind Hospital for children in 1863 after her elder son Russell James Colman (1861-1946) recovered from a serious childhood illness.  At this time the Jenny Lind Hospital, founded in 1853, occupied its original premises in Pottergate in the centre of Norwich.  By the end of the nineteenth century these premises had become inadequate. In 1898, the year of his own death, Jeremiah James Colman gave a new site for this purpose on the then outskirts of the city in memory of his wife who had died in 1895.  By 1975 these second premises had become inadequate for a children’s hospital of contemporary standards and the Jenny Lind was transferred to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital.  New buildings were erected on the site that was renamed the Colman Hospital in 1977 in memory of its donor.  As the site was given by Jeremiah James Colman as a memorial to his wife Caroline it is appropriate that her name also should be commemorated, hence this unit is named Caroline House.

Over the years, there have been a number of developments and upgrades of facilities on the site.  These have ensured that the service remains one of the most up-to-date and focussed units of its kind in the country.