The General Lying-In Hospital was one of the first maternity hospitals in Great Britain. It opened in 1767 on Westminster Bridge Road, London and closed in 1971. Lying-in is an archaic term for childbirth, and "general" here refers not to a hospital handling all sorts of cases, but to one accepting all patients, i.e. not linked to one religion, as hospitals often were.
Video General Lying-In Hospital
History
The General Lying-In Hospital was an initiative of Dr John Leake, a physician. The foundation stone for the hospital was laid in August 1765 and the facility opened as the Westminster New Lying-in Hospital, on the north side of Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, then on the outskirts of London in April 1767.
With a view to expansion, the governors bought a lease of a plot of ground with 100-foot frontage on the east side of York Road, Lambeth in the early 1820s. The new building was designed by Henry Harrison and was built at a cost of about £3,000. On 22 September 1828, the minutes record that "On Friday Morning a Patient was delivered of a Son in the New Hospital and the Committee met this day in the new Hospital for the first time." The facility was incorporated by royal charter as the General Lying-In Hospital in 1830. A new ward and a training school for midwives was established in 1879.
Joseph Lister became consulting surgeon in March 1879 and Sir John Williams and Sir Francis Champneys were appointed physicians the following year. Two houses on the north side of the hospital were converted into a nurses home in 1907; this facility was re-built between 1930 and 1933. The hospital was evacuated to Diocesan House, St Albans during the Second World War bur returned to Lambeth and joined the National Health Service under the management of St Thomas' Hospital in 1946.
The hospital closed in 1971 and fell into a state of dereliction. It was restored and refurbished in 2003 at a cost of £4.27 million financed in part by a grant from the Guy's and St Thomas' Charity. Since March 2013 the building has comprised part of the Premier Inn Hotel Waterloo. The modern elements of the hotel were nominated for the 2013 Carbuncle Cup for bad buildings.
Maps General Lying-In Hospital
See also
- Rotunda Hospital, formerly the Dublin Lying-in Hospital, founded 1745
- Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital, founded 1739 in West London
- British Lying-In Hospital, 1749
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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