UCL BLOOMSBURY PROJECT

History

It was founded in 1851 and opened in 1852 as a hospital for children as inpatients

The hospital had its origins in “A meeting of Gentlemen desirous of promoting the establishment of a Hospital for Sick Children” at the house of Dr Bence Jones, 30 Lower Grosvenor Street (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 30 January 1850, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital); the Committee continued to meet there during the next few months to plan the hospital

They had sought and gained the support of the Bishop of London by early 1851 (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 14 January 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

Interestingly, for a hospital which is now synonymous with its Bloomsbury address Great Ormond Street, this was chosen as its site only comparatively late in the proceedings, and because of the failure of other proposed premises

The Provisional Committee visited the “Infirmary for Children” in the Waterloo Road in 1850, but reported that it was “not adapted for and cannot be converted into such a Hospital for Sick Children as it is their object to establish” (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 5 April 1850, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

By November 1850 they were looking for suitable premises in south-west London, and in December they were considering the adaptation of no. 1 Upper Gloucester Street, Dorset Square, with the use of the garden of no. 43 Allsop Terrace at the back, in Marylebone, just west of Regent’s Park (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 5 November 1850, 22 December 1850, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

In early 1851 Upper Gloucester Street was still under consideration, along with an adjoining house in Allsop Terrace for outpatients, but by March it was reported that the subcommittee for finding suitable premises were authorised to negotiate for the premises of the old Consumption Hospital in Chelsea (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 14 January 1851, 23 January 1851, 13 March 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The first mention of Great Ormond Street as a possible location came in the meeting of 1 April 1851, when the subcommittee was reported as having “looked over a house and premises in Great Ormond St Russell Square at the corner of Powis Place belonging to Mr Martelli”; this became almost guaranteed to become the Hospital’s home two weeks later when it was reported that the house in Upper Gloucester Street had been disposed of (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 1 April 1851, 15 April 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

At the end of April the Hospital Committee was still negotiating with Mr Wyatt, Mr Martelli’s agent, for 49 Great Ormond Street, with the intention being to have the old lease cancelled, and a new lease for 21 years at £200 pa being agreed in its place; on 13 May 1851 it was reported that the existing lease was indeed being surrendered, and that there was also a chance of letting the stables for seven years, presumably to generate extra income for the Hospital (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 29 April 1851, 13 May 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

Soon afterwards the Committee had a plan of proposed alterations to be made to no. 49 Great Ormond Street, further consideration of which was postponed pending an estimate of the cost; this was given at the next meeting as £289, and duly approved, with a few alterations (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 20 May 1851, 27 May 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

On 17 June 1851 the Committee considered the tenders for performing the alterations which had been submitted to them, and awarded the building work to Mr H. W. Cooper, a local Bloomsbury builder, of 42 Wakefield Street, whose estimate had been £378; by October the alterations were under way (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 17 June 1851, 31 October 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

In May 1851, the Committee decided to consider calling their hospital the “London Hospital for Children”, rather than simply the Hospital for Sick Children, in order to distinguish it more clearly from the Infirmary for Children in Lambeth (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 27 May 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

In June 1851 this question was duly considered and it was decided to call the hospital the “London Hospital for Sick Children”; only on 2 January 1852, just before the hospital opened, was this changed back to the original title of the Hospital for Sick Children (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 3 June 1851, 2 January 1852, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

By November 1851 the Committee was considering details of beds and running costs; they had learned that it cost under £800 a year to run a hospital of 20 beds and a dispensary of 1000 patients a year, and determined (whether reasonably or not!) that their costs would be rather less as they were dealing with children, not adults (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 7 November 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

Accordingly, it was decided that they would open with 20 general beds plus 8 fever beds, but that they would limit the total number of patients to 20 at any one time (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 7 November 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

A financial statement to 8 October 1851 shows an impressive balance of £1347 10s 9d, with £2417 having been received in donations, £650 having been spent on alterations to 49 Great Ormond Street, and £50 on baths (GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

By November 1851 they were drafting the advertisement for the Matron, who must be 30–45 years old, a member of the Church of England, single, and without encumbrances; her salary was to be £40 with board and lodging provided (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 21 November 1851, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

By November 1851 the alterations to the building were also well advanced, and in January 1852 it was resolved to open on Monday 2 February 1852 (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 28 November 1851, 9 January 1852, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The Board of Health had sent their official sanction to say that the premises were fit for purpose by the meeting of 26 January 1852, but in this meeting the opening was postponed for a week, to 9 February 1852 (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 26 January 1852, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The opening date was subsequently postponed again to 16 February 1852 (First meeting of the Committtee of Management, 29 January 1852, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital), although the minutes contain no account of the eventual opening (neither does The Times) and historians disagree about whether it actually opened on 14 or 17 February; the Hospital reportedly also only opened with ten beds instead of the planned 20

The most likely date of opening is 16 February 1852, which was a Monday, although the earliest recorded patient was admitted on 17 February 1852

After the opening, the minutes of meetings were generally concerned with the day-to-day business of running a hospital, such as when to admit visitors

This was agreed on 8 April 1852 as only being allowable between 3–4pm on Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, “except by special leave from the Matron or House Surgeon”, and with a limit of 2 visitors per patient per day; the visitors were also strictly prohibited from bringing in any food (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 8 April 1852, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

In October 1852 a payment of 30s was agreed to Mr Neeves for “an Electrifying Machine”, while in a later meeting, also in October, it was resolved to form a Museum “for the preservation of valuable specimens” (Minutes of the Provisional Committee, 21 October 1852, 28 October 1852, GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

By 10 February 1853, almost a year after the Hospital opened, its balance sheet showed a very healthy balance of £2169 9s 3d (GOS/1/2/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The Hospital also received from its beginning many donations of toys, books, clothes, furniture, and other useful items, which were faithfully recorded in Matron’s report book, along with the illnesses of nurses and other staff, and the constant battle to keep a good cook (Matron’s report book, GOS/5/2/29, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

On 27 June 1856 a donation from Miss Louisa Twining (giving her address as 13 Bedford Place) of 14 flannel petticoats was recorded (Matron’s report book, 27 June 1856, GOS/5/2/29, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

Further donations from Bloomsbury-based supporters included pictures and toys from Miss Smythe of 8 Great Ormond Street (20 February 1857), 12 flannel petticoats and 12 shirts from Mrs Roberts of 3 Upper Montague Street (6 March 1857), clothes from Mrs Howes of 17 Montague Place (27 March 1857), and six picture books from Mrs Wilkinson of 39 Hunter Street (15 January 1858) (Matron’s report book, GOS/5/2/29, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The Matron also made many requests for sherry and port wine, not for herself, but for patients for whom these had been prescribed by the doctors, as well as frequently requesting more calico for bandages, and fuel (both coal and coke) to keep the Hospital warm (Matron’s report book, GOS/5/2/29, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

In March 1852 it was reported that the Hospital had 3 working nurses but no permanent nurse as yet, and so one had been lent by the Anglican nursing sisterhood of St John’s House; a week later a permanent nurse had been engaged, and the nurse on loan returned to St John’s House (Matron’s report book, 11 March 1852, 18 March 1852, GOS/5/2/29, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The Hospital was in demand right from the start, and soon found the need to expand its original premises; no. 48 Great Ormond Street was added in 1858, while a new building was commissioned from E. M. Barry in 1872 and opened in 1875, with an Isolation Block opening in 1877, and the Hospital now having 120 beds (Royal Commission on Historical Buildings Report on Great Ormond Street Hospital, revised edn, 1994, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

Nos 48–49 Great Ormond Street were demolished in 1882, with a new wing built from 1890–1893 on their site, giving the Hospital 214 beds overall (Royal Commission on Historical Buildings Report on Great Ormond Street Hospital, revised edn, 1994)

This phase of building had been intended to be known as the Jubilee Wing, but delays in financing it meant that it did not open in time for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, opening instead in 1893 as the South Wing

In 1897 the premises of neighbouring Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth were acquired for a new outpatient wing (the Astor Wing, opened in 1908) when this Hospital moved to St John’s Wood (Royal Commission on Historical Buildings Report on Great Ormond Street Hospital, revised edn, 1994); the Hospital also retained what had been the nuns’ accommodation as accommodation for its nurses until the Guilford Street home was opened in the 1930s

Further extensions in the twentieth century included a new outpatients wing in 1908–1909, a nurses’ home in Guilford Street in 1934–1937 (RIBA Architecture Medal, 1936), and subsequently the Southwood Building, south of the nurses’ home

One important early building still survives: the 1870s chapel designed by E. M. Barry, which is Grade II* listed and which was not demolished but carefully moved some way north in November 1990 to accommodate further rebuilding

No. 49 Great Ormond Street (which was later renumbered) had a medical history; it had been the home of physician and book collector Richard Mead (supporter of the Foundling Hospital) until his death there in 1754 (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)

The Hospital subsequently acquired no. 48 Great Ormond Street (also later renumbered) in 1858; the first purpose-built hospital building on this site was commissioned from the Hospital’s honorary architect, E. M. Barry, in 1872 and opened in 1877 (Royal Commission on Historical Buildings Report on Great Ormond Street Hospital, revised edn, 1994)

In the 1870s the Hospital’s expansion also included taking over land in neighbouring Grenville Mews to make a recreation ground for the children (Building Committee minutes, 9 April 1877, 9 July 1877, 24 September 1877, GOS/1/9/1, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The Hospital subsequently acquired the premises of three neighbouring hospitals: the first, the former Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth on Great Ormond Street itself, was acquired in 1897

In the 1920s the Hospital was one of the major Bloomsbury institutions negotiating to take over the coveted Foundling Hospital site at Coram’s Fields, where it could start over with purpose-built hospital buildings on a huge area not far from its existing location

Reports of the time highlighted the many inadequacies of the existing Hospital, including its many changes of level and stairs (there was only one lift), a high incidence of postoperative infections (caused in part by patients having to be taken too far), overcrowding in admissions, inadequate accommodation for nurses and residents, insufficient baths and WCs, insufficient sunlight, too few balconies, and small and insanitary kitchens resulting in frequent bouts of gastroenteritis from improperly-prepared feeds (GOS/4/3/xii/1–2, Great Ormond Street Hospital)

The plan, however, failed, and the Hospital remained at its Great Ormond Street base

The two hospital premises subsequently acquired were the former Italian Hospital on the corner of Queen Square and Devonshire Street in the 1990s, and four floors of the still-operating London Homœopathic Hospital on the corner of Great Ormond Street and Queen Square in the early 21st century; the Hospital also expanded into Guilford Street and Lamb’s Conduit Street

It is the most famous children’s hospital in the country and perhaps the world

It continues to offer world-class, child-centred treatments to tens of thousands of patients a year

As part of the National Health Service, most of this is provided free to UK children, but the Hospital also treats private and international patients from around the world