HOSPITALS

See Also: DISEASES; GRAVEYARDS Resurrectionists; HOSPITALS, CLOSED; HOSPITALS, SPECIALIST; ITALIANS The Italian Hospital; MEDICINE; MENTAL HEALTH; UNIVERSITIES

Charing Cross Hospital

The Duchess of Kent - the mother of Queen Victoria - helped raised funds for a 60-bed hospital on the northern side of the Strand.

Location: Fulham Palace Road, W6 8RF

Website: www.imperial.nhs.uk/our-locations/charing-cross-hospital

Cottage Hospitals

Location: The Passmore-Edwards Cottage Hospital, 48 Gunnersbury Lane, W3 8EF

See Also: LIBRARIES Public Libraries, John Passmore Edwards; PHILANTHROPY John Passmore Edwards

Guy's Hospital

Thomas Guy had a bookshop on the corner of Lombard Street and Cornhill. He made a fortune from printing, bookselling, and buying in financially needy sailors pay tickets at a hefty discount to their face value for ready cash and subsequently taking payment in full for the chits. In 1707 he built and furnished three wards of St Thomas's Hospital, which was then sited on the northern side of St Thomas Street. He multiplied his wealth through timely speculation in South Sea Bubble share market. In 1721 he founded Guy's Hospital on land on the southern side of St Thomas Street. It was London's first purpose-built hospital. Previously, they had evolved from the remnant of earlier religious establishments.

Location: 1 Cornhill, EC3V 3ND (orange, purple)

Great Maze Pond, SE1 9RT

See Also: THE ARMY The Royal Hospital Chelsea; BOOKSHOPS, DISAPPEARED Thomas Guy; FINANCIAL SCANDALS The South Sea Bubble

Website: www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk

Hospital Design

The engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel designed an innovative hospital that was erected at Renkioi for men who had been wounded in The Crimea.

Novel Writing

James Hamilton-Paterson, the author of Playing With Water (1987), wrote his novel during a two-year-long spell during which he was working as a porter at St Stephen's Hospital, Fulham. Jake Arnott was a mortuary technician at University College Hospital while he was writing The Long Firm (1999).

Location: St Stephen's Hospital, 252 Fulham Road, SW10 9NA (orange, purple)

The Cruciform Building, Gower Street, WC1E 6AU (purple, turquoise)

See Also: DETECTIVE FICTION Agatha Christie

The Old Operating Theatre

The Old Operating Theatre, Museum & Herb Garret was an early 19^thC operating theatre that was built as part of St Thomas's Hospital. After St Thomas's moved away from Southwark, the room was used for storing herbs in. It fell into disuse and was forgotten about for many years, thereby ensuring that it survived intact.

The theatre was discovered in 1956, almost a century after it had been sealed shut.

Location: 9a St Thomas Street, SE1 9RY

See Also: HERITAGE Mislaid London; PERIOD PROPERTIES Period Rooms; RAILWAY STATIONS London Bridge Station

Website: https://oldoperatingtheatre.com

The Royal Free Hospital

In 1827, on a winter's night, Dr William Marsden (1796-1867) found a young woman suffering from acute exposure in the churchyard of St Andrew Holborn but was unable to gain admission for her at any hospital. She died. The incident led him to found in 1828 the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Care of Malignant Diseases, which opened in Greville Street.

In 1837, at the suggestion of its new patron Queen Victoria (1819-1901), the hospital changed its name to the Royal Free Hospital. In 1843 the Royal Free moved into a former Army barracks in the Gray's Inn Road. In 1974 it moved to Hampstead.

Location: The Eastman Dental Hospital, 256 Gray's Inn Road, WC1X 8LD (red, yellow)

16 Greville Street, EC1N 8SQ (purple, brown)

65 Lincoln's Inn Fields, WC2A 3JX. Marsden's home. (blue, red)

Pond Street, NW3 2QG.

See Also: HOSPITALS, SPECIALIST The Royal Marsden

Website: www.royalfree.nhs.uk

The Royal London Hospital

The London Infirmary was formed at a meeting that was held in 1740 at The Three Feathers tavern on Cheapside. John Harrison was the moving figure in its foundation. The institution opened its doors in Moorfields. In 1748 it changed its name to the London Hospital. Nine years later it relocated to Whitechapel.

In 1783 Sir William Blizard and Thomas Maddocks founded the London Hospital Medical School. The governors of the London Hospital were concerned that the college might prove to be a drain upon the hospital's resources. Therefore, the new entity was technically independent of it and was kept at an organisational arm's length. The hospital took over the formal running of the School in 1879.

During the 19^thC and early 20^thC members of the Hanbury family served as life governors of the London. Their wealth was derived from the Truman, Hanbury & Buxton brewery which was located in Brick Lane.

In 1990 the London Hospital changed its name to the Royal London Hospital.

Location: Whitechapel Road, E1 1FR (blue, grey)

See Also: CHILD WELFARE Barnado's

Website: www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/the-royal-london

The Elephant Man

John Merrick the Elephant Man entered the London Hospital as a resident patient in 1886. He was aided by the surgeon Sir Frederick Treves. Francis Carr-Gomm, the Chairman of the hospital, took a concerned interest in the well-being of Merrick.

Location: 6 Wimpole Street, W1G 7AL. Treves's home. (red, grey)

St Bartholomew's Hospital

Bart's was founded in 1123 by Rahere, an Augustinian canon who was a figure of note at the court of King Henry I. While on a pilgrimage to Rome, he had contracted malaria. During the initial severe bout, he had vowed that if he survived he would found a hospital for the needy. Following his return to London he established the Priory of St Bartholomew, which had a hospital attached to it.

Dick Whittington the famous mayor, left money in his will for its repair in 1423.

In 1539 King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, thereby closing the hospital s parent priory. However, Sir Richard Gresham petitioned the king about the need for there to be medical provision in the City of London. Therefore, the monarch signed a royal charter in 1544 under which the hospital operated as a non-religious body until it became part of the National Health Service in 1948.

At St Bartholomew's William Harvey had a reputation for being an undistinguished, unsympathetic physician who was assiduous in collecting fees from either his patients or their heirs.

St Bartholomew's Medical School was founded in 1662. This made it the oldest medical college in London.

The architect James Gibbs designed the buildings around the quadrangle of Bart's.

Lionel Bart (n Begleiter) (1930-1999) wrote the musical Oliver!. He acquired his anglicised surname after passing Bart's on a bus.

Location: West Smithfield, EC1A 7BE (purple, turquoise)

See Also: FAIRS St Bartholomew's Fair; MENTAL HEALTH Bedlam; NUCLEAR WEAPONS Joseph Rotblat

Website: www.bartshealth.nhs.uk/st-bartholomews

Richard Gordon

Gordon Ostlere (1921-2017) was an anaesthetist who trained and worked at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was to claim that he had become one because he did not like patients. He became a member of The British Medical Journal's editorial staff. He was to declare that his prose was improved by having to prepare articles on the diencephalon or haemodynamics under a sub-editor who had the fiercest eye in London for a hanging participle. He held that writing obituaries for the publication had helped him to develop the ability to write fiction.

While working as a doctor on a cargo ship he used his largest stretches of free time to write up a series of anecdotes into the novel Doctor In The House (1952), which was set in the fictional St Swithin's Teaching Hospital. He used the pseudonym, Richard Gordon. The novel's protagonist was an innocent medical student who falls in with three companions who are devoted to drinking and womanising. The book was translated into numerous languages.

A movie of it was released in 1954. The lead actor was Dirk Bogarde who became a star. The cast included James Robertson Justice as Sir Lancelot Spratt, Kenneth More, and Donald Sinden. Ostlere wrote a further sixteen Doctor novels. These sold millions of copies. The later ones reflected the 1970s fashion for farce and sexual innuendo. Doctor In The Soup (1986) was the final one. A further six films were made from these. There were also radio and television adaptations.

St George's Hospital

St George's Hospital was founded in 1733 by a group of former governors of the Westminster Hospital, who had been of the opinion that the Westminster s buildings were not up to its needs. For their new foundation they acquired the then suburban residence of Lord Lanesborough at Hyde Park Corner. (Tattersall's disappeared under an extension of the hospital.)

The 1828 reconstruction was designed by William Wilkins.

In 1980 St George's Hospital moved to Tooting in South London. It is reputed that following the closure of the original hospital, the Department of Health looked forward to banking a healthy profit through selling its long lease on the property to developers. However, the ground landlord the Grosvenor Estate pointed out that the original lease stated that should the site ever cease to be used as a hospital then the property should automatically revert to it.

Location: The Lanesborough, 1 Lanesborough Place, SW1X 7TA (red, orange)

Blackshaw Road, Tooting, SW17 0QT

See Also: CAKES & PASTRIES Cough Tarts; THE GROSVENOR ESTATES Mayfair

Website: www.stgeorges.nhs.uk

St Mary's Hospital

Location: Praed Street, W2 1NY (red, turquoise)

See Also: CIGARS An Untimely Report; THE MIRACULOUS MOULD; RUNNING The Four-Minute Mile; TEA Tony Benn

Website: www.imperial.nhs.uk/our-locations/st-marys-hospital

St Thomas's Hospital

St Thomas's Hospital is descended from hospital that had been established in 1173 by Augustinian monks in Southwark and dedicated to St Thomas Becket. At the dissolution of the monasteries (1535-40) St Thomas's was closed. In 1551 the hospital was re-opened. This time it was re-dedicated to St Thomas the Apostle.¹

In 1707 St Thomas's Hospital was spending 50 a year on beer. Therefore, it built its own brewhouse.

St Thomas's original home was demolished to make way for the construction of the London Bridge Railway Station (1837).² In the early 1860s Florence Nightingale and Edwin Chadwick supported a campaign that sought to relocate St Thomas s Hospital to the countryside. Sir John Simon, who was a surgeon at the hospital, as well as being a public health reformer, successfully opposed this proposed move. In 1868 the hospital transferred to a site on Lambeth Palace Road that was part of the Albert Embankment (1871) development. The new hospital was made up of seven pavilions. The plan for it had been devised by Nightingale.

Location: Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 7EH

See Also: FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

Website: www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/Home.aspx

¹. King Henry VIII (1491-1547) had decanonised Becket for having opposed the authority of King Henry II.

². St Thomas's Hospital's early 18^thC chapel in Southwark survived the hospitals building's demolition. It became the Chapter House of Southwark Cathedral.

June Jolly

June Jolly (1928-2016) wish to become a doctor was frustrated by her poor Latin. Instead, she studied social science at Southampton University and the London School of Economics. Her tutors included Donald Winnicott. For over a decade she worked as a child protection officer. However, she concluded that nurses were of more benefit to society than social workers were. In 1963 she was admitted to training course at St Thomas's. She then worked there, at St Christopher's Hospice in South London, and at Brook General Hospital in Greenwich. Her background in social care meant that she appreciated that children's emotional needs were not being attended in hospitals. She became a leading advocate that ill children should be treated in a warm, interactive manner. She regarded play as being as important as cleanliness.

University College Hospital

North London Hospital opened on Gower Street in 1834. Three years later the institution changed its name to University London Hospital.

Location: 235 Euston Road, NW1 2BU. The current hospital. (blue, yellow)

The Cruciform Building, Gower Street, WC1E 6AU. The original hospital. (purple, turquoise)

David Backhouse 2024