Showing 37 results

St George's Hospital opened in 1733 at Lanesborough House, Hyde Park Corner in London, in what was then a countryside location. The hospital owes its existence to four men, Henry Hoare, William Wogan, Robert Witham and the Reverend Patrick Cockburn, who collectively founded the Westminster Public Infirmary in Petty France in 1720. The ever increasing needs of the sick forced the Westminster Public Infirmary to seek improved and enlarged premises. A disagreement between members of both the Governors and medical staff on the choice of building led to the founding of both Westminster Hospital in Castle Lane and Saint George's Hospital on Hyde Park Corner.

In 1735, Saint George's Hospital purchased the freehold of Lanesborough House, two adjoining houses and two acres of land. Under the direction of Isaac Ware of the Board of Works, the hospital was enlarged to accommodate 200 patients. By 1825 the hospital was falling into disrepair. A competition was held for the design of a new hospital. It was won by William Wilkins, and the new building was opened at Hyde Park Corner in 1829. Since its foundation, Saint George's Hospital has been training medical students. In 1834, a medical school was established in Kinnerton Street and it was incorporated into the main hospital building in 1868.

Just before the beginning of the Second World War, it was decided that Saint George's needed to be rebuilt on its Hyde Park Corner site. The plan was however abandoned by the commencement of hostilities. During the War, against a background of the population shift from central London, discussions took place which paved the way for Saint George's to be rebuilt and transferred out of the city centre. With the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948, the hospital became part of the Saint George's Hospital Teaching Group of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. Soon after, the Board of Governors persuaded Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health, that the new hospital should be built on the Grove Fever Hospital and Fountain Hospital sites in Tooting. Patients began to be admitted into the Grove Hospital in 1951 and, by 1953, the Grove Hospital was designated to Saint George's and responsibility for it was transferred from the Wandsworth Hospital Group to the Board of Governors of Saint George's. The Fountain Children's Hospital site adjacent to the Grove Hospital was added to the land available for the Saint George's Hospital redevelopment when the Fountain transferred to Queen Mary's Hospital, Carshalton.

The building of the new Saint George's at Tooting, South West London, began in 1973. Following the reorganisation of the National Health Service in 1974, the Board of Governors was disbanded, and the responsibility for Saint George's Hospital was passed to the Wandsworth and Merton District of the Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth Area Health Authority. South West Thames Regional Health Authority assumed responsibility for the rebuilding of the new Saint George's. The first phase of the new Saint George's Hospital Medical School opened in 1976. The hospital at Hyde Park closed its doors for the final time in 1980 and HM Queen Elizabeth II formally opened the new St George's Hospital and Medical School at Tooting on 6 November 1980. Lanesborough Wing, the first of the ward blocks opened in 1980. In 1993, Saint George's Hospital came under the control of Saint George's Healthcare NHS Trust.

The hospital has been administered by the following:

1733 - 1948: Saint George's Hospital
1948 - 1974: Saint George's Hospital Teaching Group of South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board
1974 - 1982: Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth Area Health Authority of South West Thames Regional Hospital Board
1982 - 1993: Wandsworth District Health Authority of South West Thames Regional Hospital Board
1993 - : Saint George's Healthcare NHS Trust

The hospital was originally built as a convalescent home for recovering patients from St George's Hospital (then at Hyde Park Corner), but became a brain surgery centre and was involved in the development of the CT scanner.

Atkinson Morley, a former medical student at St George's and a wealthy landowner and hotelier, left £100,000 in his will to St George's 'for receiving, maintaining and generally assisting convalescent poor patients', and the hospital opened in July 1869. It received patients from St George's initially on horse-drawn carriages, and from 1888 on an 'omnibus' accommodating 14 people.

It remained a convalescent home until 1939, and during the First World War it accommodated servicemen. The hospital was struggling financially, and gradually it began to admit more acute cases as well as tuberculosis patients. During the Second World War it became Atkinson Morley Emergency Hospital.

After the war, the hospital became an internationally recognised neuroscience centre, established by neurosurgeon Wylie McKissock. The Department of Psychiatry and an X-ray department specialising in neuroradiology were established in 1949; a Sleep Laboratory was established in 1972. The Wolfson Neurorehabilitation Centre was opened in 1967 to provide rehabilitation and outpatient services for the hospital. The hospital successfully introduced CT (computed tomography) scanning into medical practice in 1971 following a prototype scanner built by electronic engineer Godfrey Hounsfield, who was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize for his invention in 1979.

The building closed in 2003, and neuroscience services were located to the Atkinson Morley Wing at St George's Hospital, Tooting; the Wolfson Neurorehabilitation Centre remained in Wimbledon.

Opened in 1893 by the Metropolitan Asylums Board (MAB) during an epidemic of scarlet fever. Initially conceived of as an annex to the adjacent Grove Fever Hospital, opened in 1899.

The hospital was removed in 1911 by MAB from its isolation hospitals service. It was reopened in 1912 as a mental hospital for 'unimprovable imbeciles' and renamed the Fountain Mental Hospital. A school was established in 1917 for the children in the hospital.

The hospital was hit by a bomb in 1944 during the Second World War and many parts of it destroyed.

In 1948 the hospital joined the NHS and became the Fountain Hospital, under the control of the Fountain Group Hospital Management Committee. A new X-ray department was established in 1950, but the old buildings, intended to be temporary, were not replaced by more permanent buildings as the site was decided to use to move St George's Hospital to from Hyde Park Corner. The Fountain Hospital was in the 1950s severely overcrowded and the temporary huts were dilapidated. The hospital merged with Queen Mary's Hospital in 1959, becoming the Fountain and Carshalton Group; patients and services were transferred to Queen Mary's Hospital, which was underused and under the threat of closure.

The Mental Health Act 1959 improved the position of the patients, and Queen Mary's Hospital became a comprehensive children's hospital for mental and physical disorders and diseases.

The Fountain Hospital closed in 1963; many of the patients were transferred to St Ebba's Hospital in Epsom and to Queen Mary's Hospital. The buildings were demolished and the site is now occupied by St George's Hospital and St George's, University of London.

Opened in Grove Road, Balham in 1911, funded by the will of Benjamin Weir (d.1902). During the First World War, the hospital was taken over by the Kensington Division of the British Red Cross Society, and became the Kensington Red Cross War Hospital, part of the Third London (T.F.) General Hospital, and received patients not only from the military hospital but also directly from the battlefields abroad. It closed as a military hospital in 1919, and re-opened as a general hospital in 1920.

A new maternity hospital, the Wandsworth War Memorial Maternity Home, was built on an adjacent site by the Wandsworth Borough Council in 1931, administered by the Weir Hospital until 1934. The hospital joined the NHS in 1948, and it was combined with the Wandsworth War Memorial Maternity Home. The hospital closed as a general hospital in 1950, and the two hospitals, now known as the Weir Maternity Hospital, re-opened later that year. A premature baby unit was opened in 1951 and a new maternity unit built in the 1960s. The hospital closed in 1977 when maternity units were re-located to district general hospitals.

Initially constructed as a workhouse infirmary, begun in 1843 and expanded in 1868 and again in 1894, with bed numbers increasing from 50 to 300. In 1898 a new purpose-built nurses' home was added. In 1902 it was separated from the workhouse and became Kingston Infirmary. Until 1912 there was only a single full-time doctor on the staff.

During the First World War, the infirmary was used to treat injured servicemen, and in 1920 it was renamed the Kingston and District Hospital, the word 'infirmary' having become too associated with the stigma of the Poor Law. A larger nurses' home was built in 1926 and expansion continued during the 1930s, after the Board of Guardians that had previously administered the hospital was replaced with a Public Assistance Committee under the Local Government Act 1929.

Plans to rebuild the hospital were disrupted by the Second World War, during which the outpatients department was bombed. In 1948 the hospital joined the NHS under the control of the Kingston and Long Grove Hospital Management Committee, part of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board.

Following the reorganisation of the NHS in 1974, the hospital came under the control of the Kingston and Richmond (later Kingston and Esher) District Health Authority, part of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority. In 1991, it formed the Kingston Hospital NHS Trust.

Opened in 1902 as the Horton Asylum, the second in the 'Epsom cluster' built by the London County Council. It was an exact replica of the Bexley Asylum and had 2000 beds. During both world wars it was temporarily turned into a war hospital, treating wounded servicemen and air-raid casualties.

In 1948 the hospital joined the NHS under the control of the Horton Hospital Medical Committee, part of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. Under the new system it received patients from the London boroughs of Wimbledon, St Marylebone, Paddington, Holborn, Hampstead, and part of the City of Westminster.

During the 1950s-1960s it hosted trainee nurses from St George's on placements to gain psychiatric experience.

Opened in 1899 in Tooting Grove, opposite the entrance to the Fountain Hospital. During the First World War it became the Grove Military Hospital, and parts of the hospital were designated for infectious diseases, tuberculosis and dermatology and sexually transmitted diseases. It became a fever hospital again in 1920, and was taken over by LCC in 1930.

Joseph Bramhall Ellison, a physician at the hospital, discovered in 1932 that giving Vitamin A to children with measles reduced their mortality rates drastically.

During the Second World War the hospital admitted civilian air-raid casalties, but several ward blocks were damaged by bombs. The hospital joined the NHS in 1948 under the control of the Wandsworth Hospital Group as the Grove Hospital.

The site was designated for St George's Hospital, and patients from St George's began to be admitted in 1951; staff and patients from St James' Hospital, Balham were also temporarily transferred to the hospital. St George's Hospital took over administrative control of the Grove Hospital in 1954, and it became the Tooting branch of St George's Hospital. Many of the original buildings were demolished in the 1970s.

Opened in 1858 at Soho Square. Dental School opened the following year to provide formal education and training. Following the introduction of chloroform anaesthesia in 1866, the hospital began to use nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic.

The hospital moved to Leicester Square in 1874 due to inadequate space on Soho Square. The hospital continued to be overcrowded, despite only accepting out-patients, and expanded several times in the 1880s and 1890s. The hospital was rebuilt in 1897, and opened in 1901 as the Royal Dental Hospital of London.

The hospital and London School of Dental Surgery joined the University of London in 1911. Female students were admitted following First World War. During the Second World War, the hospital remained open, despite some damage caused by a landmine in 1940.

The hospital joined the NHS in 1948 and came under the administration of St George's Hospital Management Committee. In the 1950s, most of the non-clinical facilities were moved to Orange Street. In 1974, the hospital came under the control of the Wandsworth and East Merton (Teaching) District Health Authority, part of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority. In 1976 the preclinical departments of the Dental School relocated to Tooting. In 1983 the school merged with the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals, and the Royal Dental Hospital closed in 1985.

Founded by Eleanor Davies-Colley (1874-1934) and Maud Chadburn (1868-1957), surgeons at the New Hospital for Women, in 1912 as a general hospital for women and providing training for women. The hospital was officially opened in 1916.

Only women and children were admitted, and the whole staff, with the exception of the engineer and the gardener, were women. A new building nearby was purchased and opened in 1924, an out-patients department on the same site added in 1927, a new wing opened in 1929 and a new X-ray department opened in 1932. The Second World War postponed further expansion. The hospital joined the Emergency Medical Service, and admitted war casualties, including male patients. Nurses' Home was opened in 1945. A country annex near Crawley, was opened in 1948, and closed in 1970.

In 1948, the hospital joined the NHS under the Lambeth Group Hospital Management Committee, part of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. In 1964 it came under the South West London Group Hospital Management Committee, and in 1974 it became part of the Wandsworth and East Merton (Teaching) District Health Authority, part of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority. In 1982, it came under the Wandsworth District Health Authority, which closed it in 1984.

Opened as the fourth asylum by the Metropolitan Asylums Board in 1902 following overcrowding in its first three asylums; first patients were admitted in 1903. It was designated as a hospital for 'infirm epileptics', patients with senile dementia and others 'requiring exceptional individual attention'.

The site was expanded in 1906, and the First World War temporarily postponed further expansion. The first part of the extension was finished in 1924, and the hospital came to exclusively house patients with senile dementia.

The hospital came under the control of the LCC in 1930, and was renamed Tooting Bec Hospital in 1937. It joined the NHS in 1948 under the control of the Tooting Bec Hospital Management Committee, part of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. In 1974, it came under the administration of the St Thomas' (Teaching) District Health Authority, part of the South East Thames Regional Health Authority, and in 1982 under the West Lambeth District Health Authority. The hospital closed in 1995, and its services were transferred to St Thomas' Hospital.

Opened in 1866 as a specialist hospital for children at Gough House on Queens Road West (Royal Hospital Road; Tite Street). In-patient beds were provided from 1867, and new wards opened in 1874 following an expansion.

A convalescent home opened in Margate in 1876 for the hospital, and a new street, named Tite Street built next to the hospital. New out-patients building was built in the 1880s. In 1890 the hospital absorbed the St Gabriel Home for Infants, and a new convalescent home was opened in 1892 in Broadstairs, Kent (named the Victoria and Zachery Merton Convalescent Home); the Margate convalescent home continued to be used as a long-term children's hospital. The hospital was expanded in 1903, and renamed Victoria Hospital for Children in 1905.

During the First World War two wards were used by the 2nd London General Hospital, but restored as children's wards in 1916. The hospital purchased a neighbouring house in 1921, and a new physiotherapy department was opened in 1922. Further expansions were carried out in the 1920s.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, the out-patients department was taken over by the Chelsea Borough Council to use as a First Aid Post and Decontamination Centre, and a paediatric casualty service was established. Due to damage caused by bombs, in-patient were sent to hospitals outside London.

There were plans to amalgamate the hospital with the Belgrave Hospital for Children, but the hospital instead became part of the St George's Hospital Group. In 1964, the Ministry of Health closed the hospital and the services were transferred to St George's Hospital in Tooting, where a children's ward was named the Princess Louise Ward.