London’s hospitals have hardly been out of the news during the current pandemic. With resources stretched to the limit by the volume of COVID admissions, NHS hospital staff have been rightly lauded for their superhuman efforts to keep us safe during this difficult time.

By way of our own small tribute to our amazing NHS staff, we asked our guides to come up with their top 10 of the capital’s many historic hospitals. We hope you enjoy our delve into a little of the history of healthcare in London.

Royal Herbert Hospital by Rob Smith

One of the most shocking aspects of the Crimean War (1853-56) was the high death rate of soldiers in military hospitals. Ten times the number who died from battle wounds died from infectious diseases and malnutrition.

Secretary of War, Sidney Herbert, was so concerned about the situation he asked his friend Florence Nightingale to go to the military hospital in Scutari to investigate. Florence Nightingale was horrified to find the poor hygiene conditions in the hospital, with inadequate ventilation, poor lighting and no proper hospital catering compounding problems. Her letter back to The Times newspaper caused the government to take action but also catapulted her to fame.

After the war, Nightingale was able to write more about how hospital design could encourage patient recovery, and Sidney Herbert helped put the ideas in practice by funding a new military hospital on Shooters Hill. As Nightingale specified, it should have good ventilation and separate wards so infection could be controlled and each bed was to have a view, recognising the role patient morale had in recovery.

Sidney Herbert died before the hospital was completed in 1866, but the hospital was named the Royal Herbert in his honour. The Royal Herbert went on to be a model for hospital design around the country, using improvements in engineering to build a hospital focused on patient recovery.

The Royal Herbert remained a military hospital until 1977, part of the vast military industrial complex in Woolwich. After being derelict for a while it was converted into apartments called The Royal Herbert Pavilions. You can see this pioneering hospital on the first part of our Capital Ring Walk on August 3^rd.

The Maudsley Hospital by Chris Firmin

The Maudsley, a psychiatric hospital in Denmark Hill, Camberwell, is the largest mental health training institution in the UK.

In 1908 the prominent psychiatrist Sir Henry Maudsley gave a grant of £30k to the London County Council towards the cost of establishing a specialist hospital to treat recoverable mental disease. In 1911 a suitable site was found opposite the newly opened Kings College Hospital in Camberwell; construction began in 1913.

Before the new hospital could open it was requisitioned by the government for use as a military hospital for the duration of WW1, mainly as a treatment centre for soldiers diagnosed with ‘shell-shock’ and psychoneuroses.

The Maudsley did not open for civilian patients until 1923. Its stated aim was to find effective treatments for neuroses, mild forms of psychosis and dependency disorders. The hospital expanded to include the Central Pathology Laboratory (of international repute), an out-patient department, a child guidance clinic, and a ward for teaching psychiatry to medical students from Royal College Hospital.

In the 1930s some eugenic practices were introduced such as involuntary sterilisation, influenced by links with German psychiatry though eschewing the Nazi conflation of therapy with punishment. However, certain procedures at the Maudsley using psychoactive drugs involving electrotherapy and deep coma, mainly led by the controversial junior doctor William Sargent, were criticised as ‘unconstrained experimentation’. 

When WW2 broke out all the wards (totalling 260 beds) were closed and clinical staff dispersed to emergency hospitals. The Maudsley reopened in 1946 and joined the NHS in 1948, amalgamating with the Bethlem Royal Hospital. In 2000, the South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust was designated, serving the people of Lambeth and Southwark as well as retaining its national role in psychiatric medicine.

St. Bernard’s Hospital by Alan Fortune

St. Bernard’s Hospital, located next to the Grand Union Canal in west London, opened as Hanwell Asylum in 1888.  By 1891 it had become the largest psychiatric hospital in Europe.

The institution is associated with two pioneers in the field of mental health. Sir William Ellis, the first Medical Superintendent, encouraged patients to use the skills and trades they possessed before being admitted to the Asylum.  This ‘therapy of employment’ was a precursor to what we know call occupational therapy.  

Dr. John Conolly became the asylum’s third Medical Superintendent in 1839.  He went on to abolish the use of mechanical restraints to control patients.  This was a great success and paved the way for other asylums to do the same. Padded cells, solitary confinement and sedatives were used instead.

The institution has undergone several name changes throughout its existence, becoming St. Bernard’s Hospital in 1937. It is now an independent part of West London Mental Health (NHS) Trust.  It has about 370 beds and continues to provide forensic and acute mental health treatment.  

Many of the hospital’s Grade II listed buildings remain, including the chapel which is being converted into an arts centre as part of a local housing development which also incorporates the hospital’s original entrance arch.  A high wall separates the canal from the hospital grounds, and if you stroll beside the canal, you can see the slot through which hoses were introduced in the hospital in the event of fire, and the bricked up openings through which food and other goods were delivered from the canal boats.

Endell Street Military Hospital by Richard Watkins

The Endell Street Military Hospital in Covent Garden was the only first world war hospital run exclusively by women.  It greatly advanced the status of women medics and produced cutting edge research.

On the outbreak of World War 1, doctors and suffragists, Flora Murray and Louisa Garret-Anderson (daughter of the more famous Elizabeth) set up two French Red Cross hospitals. The women considered it unlikely they would get permission to run an English hospital as women were not permitted to treat male patients.

However, from January 1915, so impressed were the Government by glowing reports of Murray and Garret Anderson’s hospitals, and wishing to bring more war injured home to England for treatment, they invited them to return to London to run a hospital in the former St Giles Workhouse.

The site was ideal for adapting.  A staff of over 100 was quickly recruited, with a capacity eventually of 573 beds and the hospital opened in May 1915.  They were soon receiving up to 80 patients a night. 

The hospital was a staggering achievement not only because of the prejudice against women medics, but also because they started with little experience of treating military injuries.

Life must have been incredibly pressured on its wards, but the hospital also conducted research (for example, trials of gas gangrene antiserum) and developed a specialism in head injuries. Also, volunteer entertainers put on plays and music for patients. Murray and Garret-Anderson were driven by a desire to prove the abilities of women in health and to promote the wider suffrage cause.  By the time it closed in December 1919, the hospital had treated 26,000 patients (mostly men).

Today, there is a modest plaque on Dudley Court, Endell Street, part sheltered housing, occupying the former site, to remember their incredible work. 

(The Endell Street Military Hospital features on Richard’s tour: “St Giles: In Search of a Slum”).

St George’s Hospital by Stephen Benton

St George’s Hospital has an illustrious history dating from 1733. Two pioneers of modern medicine practiced there: John Hunter, known as the father of modern surgery, and Edward Jenner who was responsible for the smallpox vaccine. It was originally located at Hyde Park Corner but was relocated to Tooting as part of a move to decentralise the big teaching hospitals in the 1970s and 1980s.

The site in Tooting was already being used for health services. In 1893 the Metropolitan Asylum Board bought some land in the countryside near the village of Tooting. Here they built the Grove Hospital, an isolation hospital designed to deal with scarlet fever. Then on an adjoining site, they built an annex known as the Fountains Hospital.

By the early 1900s the two hospitals were surrounded by housing. The Grove carried on as a ‘fever’ hospital whilst Fountains became a specialist children’s hospital in 1912.

Soon after the creation of the NHS, it was decided to move the historic St George’s Hospital to Tooting. But this took many decades and really only started in earnest in the 1970s.

The buildings of the modern day hospital all have names connected with its history, with the Medical School being located in the Hunter and Jenner Wings. If you go into the medical school part of the hospital, you will find some fascinating displays telling the story of St George’s.

And outside relocated from the old site is another reminder of the hospital’s history – an archway with a bust of John Hunter on top.

The Middlesex Hospital by Dave Brown

The Middlesex Hospital was founded in 1745, and part of the original building still survives in Windmill Street.

Like all early hospitals it was designed for the poor – if you were rich you would be treated at home and looked after by servants.  Famous male midwife William Hunter worked there, and as a result it was the first hospital to provide ‘lying-in’ facilities for pregnant women.

The hospital moved to a purpose-built building in Mortimer Street in 1757. In 1781 it was the first hospital to have a ward devoted to cancer treatment – funded by the brewer Samuel Whitbread.  

The hospital closed and merged with University College Hospital in 1987. Traces of the hospital survive if you know where to look – the facade facing Nassau Street has been kept.  John Astor House on Foley Street was built to accommodate nurses and the Courtauld Building on Cleveland Street remembers the strong medical research undertaken at the hospital.  Charles Bell House in Foley Street was built as the School of Radiology, and next door was the Institute of Pathology, where a Burmese jar once held the ashes of founder Sir John Bland-Sutton watching over students.

The Middlesex Workhouse, which is now undergoing major development works (the origin of the workhouse that appears in Oliver Twist), had connections with the hospital. Health reformer, John Rogers, was a Medical Officer here, and when the workhouse was closed, the building was acquired by the Middlesex Hospital and used until 2005. 

The highlight is the mosaic and marble decorated Grade II* FItzrovia Chapel, originally the chapel of the hospital.  Built by architect John Loughbrough-Pearson, it’s an enchanting place and free to visit on Wednesdays.

Moorfields Hospital by Rob Smith

Like the Royal Herbert Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital also started out of concern for the poor state of medical care in the military.

While The Battle of the Nile in 1798 had been celebrated as a great victory in the press, the returning sailors were ignored when there were large numbers of them suffering from trachoma, an illness caused by bacteria that can result in blindness.

One doctor, John Cunningham Saunders, was so appalled by the pitiful state sailors had been left in, he set up the ‘London Dispensary for Curing Diseases of the Eye and Ear’, based in Charterhouse. Saunders’ institution trained doctors in ophthalmic medicine, one of the first specialising in the treatment of eyes.

Moving to a new site in Moorfields, not far from the current Barbican centre, gave the institution the name Moorfields Eye Hospital, although it has been based in City Road since 1897. Breakthrough techniques were pioneered at the hospital by William Bowman and George Critchett – making use of the ophthalmoscope and carrying out operations under anaesthetic.

Moorfields leads the way in ophthalmic medicine today, and doctors from around the world come to train there. New technology plays a role. When my son was sent there for diagnosis they used technology that was a spin off from the Hubble Space Telescope to examine his eyes. The doctor said that at the time this was the only equipment of its kind in a hospital anywhere, but in five years time it will be in every hospital in the country. Londoners should be proud to have this pioneering hospital in their city.

Royal London Hospital by Daniella King

The Royal London Hospital (known to locals as ‘The London) has been treating the sick of East London for nearly 300 years.

Founded in the period prior to the NHS, it was the idea of seven businessmen who met at The Feathers pub in Cheapside in 1740 and were financed by the support of wealthy benefactors.

Established as the London Infirmary, it was first located in Moorfields, then Prescott Street, before finally arriving in Whitechapel in 1750.

Its expertise as one of the leading hospitals in London was very much due to its location, an area of great poverty and poor living standards as well as industrial accidents as a result of the proximity to the docks. Many surgeons and doctors came here as few hospitals could offer the range of patients and illnesses which Whitechapel could offer.

Therefore, from the 1780s it also became a medical college which has long been a centre of education and innovation. Its nursing college opened later in 1873.

The careers of Dr Barnardo, Sir Frederick Treves, Elizabeth Garratt Anderson, Edith Cavell, John Langdon Down and James Parkinson were developed here, while Joseph Merrick (AKA “the Elephant Man”) called it home.

Recent redevelopment plans have seen the hospital move to a new site in 2012, while the famous frontage on Whitechapel High Street will soon become the new home of Tower Hamlets Town Hall.

The London employs 8520 members of staff, treats 900,000 patients annually, has 845 beds and is the original location of London Air Ambulance with 1656 patients treated in the last year.

And for me – a special place as it was where I was born a few years back!

Mount Vernon Hospital by Marilyn Greene

The ‘pretentious mass’ towering over Hampstead is the old Mount Vernon Hospital.

Originally founded as the North London Hospital for Consumption and Diseases in 1860, it also had outpatients departments in Tottenham Court Road, later moving to Fitzroy Square.

The hospital occupied  Stanfield House on Hampstead High Street before moving to Mount Vernon where a new building  by T Roger Smith in the French Renaissance style was constructed.  The foundation stone was laid by the Duke of Connaught on 29 October 1880 and the western block opened in 1881 at a cost of £25,000. It was described as the most beautiful hospital in London with views over Middlesex and the Surrey Hills.

The first floor had wards for female patients and male patients were on the second, with kitchen, servants quarters and nurses rooms above.  A central block was opened by Princess Christian in 1893 and in 1899 balconies were added to enable patients to have fresh air. The eastern block was opened by the Marquis of Zetland, giving the hospital a total of 140 beds.

The hospital was renamed the Mount Vernon Hospital for Tuberculosis and Diseases of the Lungs in 1901, and in 1904 a second Mount Vernon hospital by Frederick Wheeler was opened in Northwood.  Due to financial difficulties, it was decided in 1913 to move the entire premises to the Northwood site. 

This Northwood hospital took the Hampstead name Mount Vernon with it (after General Charles Vernon who bought property in Hampstead in 1785).  The hospital, now a general hospital, has since incorporated a Marie Curie hospital for women cancer patients (1967) and the Gray laboratory for cancer research.

To discover more about the Hampstead site’s history join one of Marilyn’s guided tours such as Alleys and Lanes of Hampstead or Hampstead in the First World War.

St Bartholomew’s Hospital by Jen Pedler

St Bartholomew’s Hospital in Smithfield is the oldest hospital in Britain still providing health care on the site it was originally founded, and will be celebrating its 900th anniversary in 2023.

It was founded 1123 by Rahere, a favourite courtier, possibly court jester, of Henry I.  While he was on a pilgrimage to Rome he became ill (probably with malaria).

In his delerium he prayed that he would be able to return home and promised God that if he recovered he would found a priory and hospital for the sick and poor. On his journey home St Bartholomew appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to build the priory and hospital in the ‘Smoothfield’ and dedicate it to him.

After obtaining the land and a Royal Charter from the King, Rahere became the first prior and master of the hospital. He died in 1140 and was buried in the priory church (now St Bartholomew the Great).

For next 400 years the hospital grew in importance but all that changed when Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome, declared himself supreme head of the church in England, and confiscated all monastic possessions. The Priory was closed in 1539 but the hospital remained although it faced an uncertain future due to loss of income. Henry VIII agreed to grant it to the City of London.

To commemorate this gift a statue of the King was erected over the new gatehouse in 1702 and remains the only outdoor statue to Henry VIII on display in London (although currently hidden by hoarding as part of the 900th anniversary restoration work). The rest of the hospital was rebuilt to a design by James Gibbs later in the eighteenth century.