Dr. Annie McCall L.R.Q.C.P.(Ireland) and L.M., MD Berne was born in Manchester on the 23rd September 1859 had an international education - Gottingen Germany, Paris, Berne and Vienna as well as the London School of Medicine for Women. She qualified in 1885 and was one of the first fifty women doctors and her interests included Midwifery and Tuberculosis.

She was deeply concerned about the high death rate of mothers during childbirth and started a school of midwifery in her own home (165 Clapham Road) in 1885. In 1889 she opened the Clapham Maternity Hospital at 41 & 43 Jeffreys Road, Stockwell with ante-natal and post-natal clinics and set high standards of hygiene and nursing care. The hospital had a Battersea Branch at 31 & 33 Albert Bridge Road with a dispensary at 2 Albert Bridge Road. Through her pioneering work in the fields of midwifery and childcare she achieved very low death rates among her patients. She was the vice chair of the London County Council Midwives Act Committee. The hospital was staffed by women and only women students were admitted, it was renamed the Annie McCall Maternity Hospital in 1936. Dr McCall retired in 1941 and died in 1949 but the main hospital building continued as an NHS maternity hospital till 1970.