In memory of Dr Andrea Tanner, a good friend and inspirational colleague
by Sue Hawkins
It is with much sadness that we report the death of our colleague, Dr Andrea Tanner, the founder of HHARP (the Historical Hospital Admission Records Project), on 23 November 2024 after a long illness.
Andrea was the inspirational founder of HHARP. After working for some time in the archives of Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, she determined to bring at least a part of those archives to a much wider audience through the creation of online resources. Given this was in the year 2000, her ideas were at the forefront the internet ‘revolution’. Having no technical experience, she brought people into her project with the skills needed to make her dream a reality and recruited a large team of dedicated volunteers to work on the project – Andrea had a way of drawing people in to work with her. I was honoured to work alongside her as HHARP took shape, growing from a small database of admissions to Great Ormond Street Hospital to the resource it is today, providing access to historical admissions to four children’s hospitals over a period of nearly 70 years. To date, HHARP has over 14,000 registered users and many more who dip in without registering. It has proved an invaluable tool not only for historians of child health, but has also found a great user-base within the family history community.
It was Andrea’s decision, informed by her belief in open access to historical resources, that HHARP should be free for anyone to access, and it will remain so in tribute to her. Without Andrea’s vision and dogged determination, it is doubtful HHARP would have seen the light of day. Her enthusiasm, dedication and good humour is sorely missed.
