UCL BLOOMSBURY PROJECT

History

It was founded in 1828 to provide the students of the new University of London’s medical school with clinical practice

From the beginning it was the intention to include a teaching hospital, but it was not until 1834 that enough money had been raised to build the North London Hospital on the University–owned plot across Gower Street from Wilkins’s building

In the first instance the University made do with a Dispensary, which it opened at 4, George Street, just north of Euston (then New) Road. Here the medical and surgical professors attended to the poor people of the neighbourhood, with students paying a fee of £5 for nine months’ attendance ‘under enlightened instructors’ (Second Statement by the Council of the University of London, explanatory of the Plan of Instruction, 1828, p. 17; this Statement, published by John Taylor, “bookseller and publisher to the University”, of 30 Upper Gower Street, is in UCL Special Collections)

The Northern Dispensary at no. 4 George Street was “the sole source of practical instruction in medicine provided in the University of London between September, 1828, and November, 1834” (The Times, 13 January 1961)

In May 1833 the foundation stone of the new North London Hospital building laid at the site in Gower Street, opposite the main UCL building; it opened with 134 beds in 1834 (W. R. Merrington, University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History, 1976)

It was officially renamed University College Hospital in 1837, but many people continued to use the old name in conjunction with the new one; it was called “North London or University College” Hospital as late as 1902 (The Times, 27 January 1902)

It was popular from the start and soon had to expand; the South Wing was added in 1840, followed by the North Wing in 1846 (W. R. Merrington, University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History, 1976)

Also in 1846, a new Eye Infirmary was added, the medical and surgical wards were separated; new beds were included for diseases of women, and there was improved outpatient treatment (W. R. Merrington, University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History, 1976)

In 1859 a Department of Skin Diseases was opened, but the Hospital was running out of space; a new top floor was built in 1867 (W. R. Merrington, University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History, 1976)

The Hospital continued to make improvements, in 1872 to its drains and ventilation, with further improvements being considered in 1877 (W. R. Merrington, University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History, 1976)

However, by the 1890s, it was clear that only a complete rebuilding would solve the problems of space and inadequate facilities, and accordingly a new design, by Alfred Waterhouse , was approved in 1896 (W. R. Merrington, University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History, 1976)

The foundation stone of the new building (usually known, after its shape, as the Cruciform) was laid in 1898, and its north-west wing and central block opened in 1900, with the whole Hospital officially opened in 1906 (W. R. Merrington, University College Hospital and its Medical School: A History, 1976)

In the twentieth century the reorganisations of hospitals occasioned by the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948 and the later introduction of NHS Trusts saw the Hospital expand enormously

It incorporated the National Temperance Hospital in 1968, and the Middlesex Hospital, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, Hospital for Tropical Diseases, and the St Peter's Group of Hospitals in 1994, as the UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and subsequently also the Eastman Dental Hospital, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and the Royal London Homoeopathic Hospital