Royal London Hospital

The London Infirmary was established in the autumn of 1740 in Featherstone Street and occupied premises in Prescot Street 1741 to 1757. Its aim was “The relief of all sick and diseased persons and, in particular, manufacturers, seamen in the merchant service and their wives and children". In 1752 the foundation stone of the hospital building on Whitechapel Road (later known as Front Block) was laid. The first patients were admitted to the hospital, now known as The London Hospital, in 1757, and the building of the front block was completed in 1759. There were subsequent alterations, developments and extensions, but parts of the original building remained in use until 2012. East and West Wings were added in 1770 and extended in the 1830s, and a new Out Patients Department opened in 1902. The London Hospital has always been a general one and, by the end of the nineteenth century, was the largest voluntary (charitably funded) general hospital in the United Kingdom, with over 1,000 beds by the early 20th century.



Originally run by a committee of financial subscribers, the hospital was governed from the 18th century by a Court of Governors to which a House Committee reported. This administration remained the same until the creation of the new National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, when they were replaced by a Board of Governors, itself dissolved in 1974, when the hospital became a part of the Tower Hamlets Health District in the City and East London Health Authority (Teaching).