History
It was founded as the Orthopaedic Institution by William Little in 1840 for the study and practice of orthopaedics (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
It had been intended to be called an ‘Infirmary for the Cure of Club Foot and other Contractures’, but the Duke of Bedford objected to the Infirmary plaque on the building, and the name was changed to Institution (Barton, ‘The Growth of Orthopaedics in Great Britain, part I’, in Current Orthopaedics, 14:1, 2000)
Little resigned in 1844 and the hospital became the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in 1845 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
His wife’s brother, Richard William Tamplin, was a surgeon at the hospital and lectured there in the 1840s (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
The congenital condition camptodactyly was first described by Tamplin in his lectures here in 1846 (P. J. Smith and A. O. Grobbelaar, ‘Camptodactyly: A Unifying Theory and Approach to Surgical Treatment,’ Journal of Hand Surgery, vol. 23, 1998)
In 1905 it amalgamated with the National Orthopaedic Hospital to form the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (and in 1907 London’s other orthopaedic hospital, the City Orthopaedic Hospital, also became part of this institution
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What was reforming about it?
It played an important part in the development of orthopaedics as a branch of medicine
Where in Bloomsbury
It was at 6 Bloomsbury Square from 1840 until 1855, when it moved to Hanover Square
Barton notes that the Bloomsbury Square house must have been impractical as a hospital, being four storeys above ground and a basement below (Barton, ‘The Growth of Orthopaedics in Great Britain, part I’, in Current Orthopaedics, 14:1, 2000)
Website of current institution
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Books about it
J. A. Chomeley, History of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (1985)
There is a brief account of the Hospital’s time at 6 Bloomsbury Square on the website of the institution occuping the house in 2011, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, at www.boardofdeputies.org.uk (opens in new window)
Archives
Its administrative and medical records from 1900–1989 are held at London Metropolitan Archives, ref. H08; details are available online via the London Metropolitan Archives catalogue (opens in new window)
Records of its King Edward’s Hospital Fund application are also held at London Metropolitan Archives, ref. A/KE/255/5; details are available online via Access to Archives (opens in new window)
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