St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS

teaching hospital A teaching hospital is a hospital or medical centre that provides medical education and training to future and current health professionals. Teaching hospitals are almost always affiliated with one or more universities and are often co-located ...

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

, England. It is one of the institutions that compose the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. Administratively part of the Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, together with

Guy's Hospital Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. ...

, King's College Hospital, University Hospital Lewisham, and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, it provides the location of the King's College London GKT School of Medical Education. Originally located in

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

, but based in

Lambeth Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area e ...

since 1871, the hospital has provided healthcare freely or under charitable auspices since the 12th century. It is one of London's most famous hospitals, associated with people such as

Sir Astley Cooper Sir Astley Paston Cooper, 1st Baronet (23 August 176812 February 1841) was a British surgeon and anatomist, who made contributions to otology, vascular surgery, the anatomy and pathology of the mammary glands and testicles, and the pathology ...

William Cheselden William Cheselden (; 19 October 168810 April 1752) was an English surgeon and teacher of anatomy and surgery, who was influential in establishing surgery as a scientific medical profession. Via the medical missionary Benjamin Hobson, his work ...

Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War ...

, Alicia Lloyd Still,

Linda Richards Linda Richards (July 27, 1841 – April 16, 1930) was the first professionally trained American nurse. She established nursing training programs in the United States and Japan, and created the first system for keeping individual medical recor ...

, Edmund Montgomery, Agnes Elizabeth Jones and Sir Harold Ridley. It is a prominent London landmark – largely due to its location on the opposite bank of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

to the Houses of Parliament. St Thomas' Hospital is accessible from Westminster tube station (a 10-minute walk across Westminster Bridge),

Waterloo station Waterloo station (), also known as London Waterloo, is a central London terminus on the National Rail network in the United Kingdom, in the Waterloo area of the London Borough of Lambeth. It is connected to a London Underground station of t ...

(tube and national rail, also a 10-minute walk) and

Lambeth North tube station Lambeth North is a London Underground station in the district of Lambeth, at the junction of Westminster Bridge Road and Baylis Road. It is on the Bakerloo line, between Elephant & Castle and Waterloo, and is in Travelcard Zone 1. It is locate ...

(another 10-minute walk).

History

The Hospital at The Borough, Southwark

The hospital was described as ancient in 1215 and was named after St

Thomas Becket Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and the ...

– which suggests it may have been founded after 1173 when Becket was canonised. This date was when it was relocated from the precinct of

St Mary Overie Southwark Cathedral ( ) or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge. It is the mother church of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. ...

Priory to "Trenet Lane", then later to St Thomas Street. However, it is possible it was only renamed in 1173 and that there was an infirmary at the priory when it was founded at

in 1106. Originally the hospital was run by a mixed order of Augustinian

canons regular Canons regular are priests who live in community under a rule ( and canon in greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by ...

and

canonesses regular Canoness is a member of a religious community of women living a simple life. Many communities observe the monastic Rule of St. Augustine. The name corresponds to the male equivalent, a canon. The origin and Rule are common to both. As with the ca ...

, dedicated to St Thomas Becket, and provided shelter and treatment for the poor, sick, and homeless. In the 15th century,

Richard Whittington Richard Whittington (c. 1354–1423) of the parish of St Michael Paternoster Royal, City of London, was an English merchant and a politician of the late medieval period. He is also the real-life inspiration for the English folk tale '' D ...

endowed a lying-in ward for unmarried mothers. The monastery was dissolved in 1539 during the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

and the hospital closed but reopened in 1551 and rededicated to

Thomas the Apostle Thomas the Apostle ( arc, 𐡀𐡌𐡅𐡕𐡌, hbo, תוֹמא הקדוש or תוֹמָא שליחא (''Toma HaKadosh'' "Thomas the Holy" or ''Toma Shlikha'' "Thomas the Messenger/Apostle" in Hebrew-Aramaic), syc, ܬܐܘܡܐ, , meaning "twi ...

. This was due to the efforts of the City of London who obtained the grant of the site and a charter from Edward VI and the hospital has remained open ever since. The hospital was also where one of the first printed English Bibles was produced in 1537, and this is commemorated by a plaque on the surviving wing in Borough High Street. The plaque inaccurately refers to "the first printed Bible in English" rather than "one of the first". There were some twenty-four priors, masters, wardens or rectors who served between the foundation of the hospital and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. Dr. Eleazar Hodson was the first St Thomas' physician about whom the medical historian

Joseph Frank Payne Joseph Frank Payne (1840–1910) was an English physician, known also as a historian of medicine. Life The son of Joseph Payne, a schoolmaster, and his wife Eliza Dyer who was also a teacher, he was born in the parish of St. Giles, Camberwell, ...

was able to find any precise information. Hodson received his medical degree at

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

in 1612 and became F.R.C.P. in 1618. At the end of the 17th century, the hospital and church were largely rebuilt by Sir Robert Clayton, president of the hospital and a former

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional pow ...

. Thomas Cartwright was the architect for the work. A statue of Clayton now stands at the north entrance to Ward Block of North Wing at St Thomas' Hospital and is Grade I listed. In 1721 Sir Thomas Guy, a governor of St Thomas', founded

as a place to treat 'incurables' discharged from St Thomas'.

Some parts of the old St Thomas' Hospital survive on the north side of St Thomas Street, Southwark including the old St. Thomas' Church, now used mostly as offices but including the Old Operating Theatre, which is now a museum. However the hospital left Southwark in 1862, when its ancient site was compulsorily purchased to make way for the construction of the Charing Cross railway viaduct from London Bridge Station. The hospital was temporarily housed at

Royal Surrey Gardens Royal Surrey Gardens were pleasure gardens in Newington, Surrey, London in the Victorian period, slightly east of The Oval. The gardens occupied about to the east side of Kennington Park Road, including a lake of about . It was the site of Su ...

in Newington (Walworth) until new buildings on the present site in Lambeth near

Lambeth Palace Lambeth Palace is the official London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is situated in north Lambeth, London, on the south bank of the River Thames, south-east of the Palace of Westminster, which houses Parliament, on the opposit ...

were completed in 1871.

The Victorian hospital in Lambeth

The present-day St Thomas' Hospital is located at a site historically known as Stangate in the

London Borough of Lambeth Lambeth () is a London borough in South London, England, which forms part of Inner London. Its name was recorded in 1062 as ''Lambehitha'' ("landing place for lambs") and in 1255 as ''Lambeth''. The geographical centre of London is at Frazier S ...

. It is directly across the

from the Palace of Westminster on a plot of land largely reclaimed from the river during construction of the Albert Embankment in the late 1860s. The new buildings were designed by

Henry Currey Henry Currey may refer to: *Henry Currey (architect) Henry Currey (1820–1900) was an English architect and surveyor. Family life He was born in October 1820, the third son of a solicitor, Benjamin Currey of Old Palace Yard, Westminster. ...

and the foundation stone was laid by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

in 1868. There was a seventh pavilion at the north end of the site next to Westminster Bridge Road for the "Treasurer's House" (hospital offices). The hospital initially had 600 beds. This was one of the first new hospitals to adopt the "pavilion principle" – popularised by Florence Nightingale in her '' Notes on Nursing'' – by having six separate ward buildings at right angles to the river frontage set 125 feet apart and linked by low corridors. The intention was primarily to improve ventilation and to separate and segregate patients with infectious diseases. As the Palace of Westminster is still technically a royal palace, a convention has been adopted that any commoner who dies within the palace is officially recorded as having died at St Thomas' Hospital to remove the need to convene a jury of members of the Royal Household under the

Coroner of the Queen's Household The Coroner of the King's/Queen's Household was an office of the Medical Household of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. It was abolished in 2013. History The title The office of Coroner of The King's or Queen's House ...

. The hospital was requisitioned by the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

in 1914 to create the 5th London General Hospital, a facility for the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps ...

to treat military casualties.

Post-war rebuilding

The northern part of the hospital site was severely damaged during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, with three ward blocks destroyed. Limited reconstruction began in the 1950s including the building now known as East Wing. Complete rebuilding to a more ambitious plan to designs by Yorke Rosenberg Mardall was agreed on in the 1960s requiring the realignment of Lambeth Palace Road further away from the river to enlarge the hospital campus. The new buildings have white-tiled cladding, which was a characteristic of several other university and hospital buildings designed by that practice. As construction of the thirteen storey block (now North Wing) was completed by John Laing & Sons in 1975 there was a widespread public reaction against the scale and appearance of this building – most notably from MPs who could see it from the river terrace of the Palace of Westminster. The southern part of the redevelopment, which would have included a second tall block, was never constructed. The three remaining Victorian ward pavilion blocks were refurbished in the 1980s. They are now

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

listed buildings. In November 1949, in an operating theatre in St Thomas' Hospital, Harold Ridley achieved the world's first implantation of an intraocular lens (IOL), treating a cataract in a 49-year-old female patient. In later life Ridley himself underwent successful bilateral intraocular lens implantation at St Thomas's. What was most pleasing to him was that he had the operation done in the same hospital where he had performed the first operation in 1949. Ridley was subsequently made a

Knight Bachelor The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are ...

"for pioneering services to cataracts surgery". With the closure of the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital at the Greenwich Hospital in 1986, services for seamen and their families are provided by the Dreadnought Unit at St Thomas' Hospital. It allows eligible merchant seafarers access to priority medical treatment, except cardiac surgery, and is funded by central government with money separate from other NHS trust funds. It originally consisted of two 28-bed wards, but nowadays Dreadnought patients are treated according to clinical need and so are placed in the ward most suitable for their medical condition. Following the merger of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals into one trust, accident and emergency services were consolidated at St Thomas' Hospital in 1993. Former prime minister

Harold Wilson James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He ...

died at the hospital on 24 May 1995, as a result of cancer and

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As ...

. In the late 1980s Dr Chris Aps introduced changes at St Thomas' Hospital which allowed cardiothoracic surgical patients to recover away from the

intensive care unit 220px, Intensive care unit An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensi ...

in an overnight intensive recovery unit: this has become a template for similar units across the United Kingdom. In October 2005 children's departments moved to new facilities designed by Michael Hopkins at Evelina London Children's Hospital to the south-east of St Thomas' Hospital.

Response to COVID-19

As the situation in Wuhan deteriorated, at the end of January 2020, four hospital trusts in the UK, including St Thomas' and The Royal Free were put on standby to receive suspected patients. After testing positive to COVID-19 on 27 March, Prime Minister

Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as ...

was admitted to St Thomas' on 5 April and as his condition deteriorated, he was moved to intensive care later that day. He was moved out of intensive care on 9 April and discharged 3 days later.

Facilities

The current main pedestrian entrance is in Westminster Bridge Road, although there is a separate vehicle and A&E entrance in Lambeth Palace Road; there is also a riverside pedestrian entrance, and the Lane Fox Unit (chronic respiratory problems) has its own riverside entrance, mainly for the use of patients on the Lane Fox Ward. The pedestrian entrance to the campus leads to a glazed link between the Lambeth Wing and the North Wing. Guy's and St Thomas' Charity commissioned sculptor

Rick Kirby Rick Kirby (born 1952) is an English sculptor born in Gillingham, Kent. He started his career as an art teacher, before quitting after sixteen years to focus on his work. Much of his work is figural, reflecting an interest in the human face ...

to produce a sculpture " Cross the Divide", and this was unveiled in 2000 outside the Main Entrance. To the north of the North Wing (closer to Westminster Bridge Road) there is a garden area above car parking with Naum Gabo's fountain sculpture '' Revolving Torsion'' at its centre. Tommy's is a UK-based charity that funds research into pregnancy problems and provides information to parents. The charity believes that it is unacceptable that one in four women in the UK will lose a baby during pregnancy and birth. It started when two obstetricians working in the maternity unit at the hospital were inspired to start fundraising for more research into pregnancy problems. It funds three research centres in the UK, including St Thomas' in London, Saint Mary's Hospital, Manchester, and the recently established

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, or RIE, often (but incorrectly) known as the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, or ERI, was established in 1729 and is the oldest voluntary hospital in Scotland. The new buildings of 1879 were claimed to be the largest v ...

Name

The use of the plural genitive s' in place of the singular genitive s's is fairly recent. The hospital newsletter in 2004 claimed that plural s' is grammatically correct, as "there are two men called St Thomas linked to the hospital's history:

and

". A hospital belonging to two men, both called Thomas, would be Thomases', so the name change in the late 20th century is considered by some to be a simple mistake. Within the South Wing of the hospital there are a number of late Victorian brass plaques headed "St Thomas's Hospital" i.e. using singular genitive. However, the medical school used the singular genitive s's; the explanation given for this was that as the medical school of the hospital it was called "St Thomas's Hospital Medical School" (although following this logic it should perhaps have been called "St Thomas' Hospital's Medical School").

Medical training at St Thomas' Hospital

St Thomas's Hospital Medical School St Thomas's Hospital Medical School in London was one of the oldest and most prestigious medical schools in the UK. The school was absorbed to form part of King's College London. History It was part of one of the oldest hospitals in London, ...

was established in 1550. Following the establishment of

as a separate institution, this continued as a single medical school, commonly known as The Borough Hospitals, with teaching across St Thomas' and Guy's Hospitals. Following a dispute over the successor to the Surgeon

Astley Cooper Sir Astley Paston Cooper, 1st Baronet (23 August 176812 February 1841) was a British surgeon and anatomist, who made contributions to otology, vascular surgery, the anatomy and pathology of the mammary glands and testicles, and the pathol ...

, Guy's established its own separate medical school in 1825 . The medical school subsequently remerged in 1982 with that at Guy's to form the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals (UMDS). Subsequent additions included the Royal Dental Hospital of London School of Dental Surgery joining with Guy's Dental School on 1 August 1983 and St John's Institute of Dermatology on 1 August 1985. The latter had previously been located at 5 Lisle Street in

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was deve ...

. Following discussion held between 1990 and 1992 with

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

and the King's College London Act 1997, the UMDS merged in 1998 with King's College School of Medicine and Dentistry to form as The Guy's, Kings & Thomas' Schools of Medicine (GKT School of Medicine), of Dentistry and of Biomedical Sciences. This was renamed as King's College London School of Medicine and Dentistry at Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Hospitals in 2005.

Nurse training at St.Thomas' Hospital

The Nightingale Training School and Home for Nurses opened at St Thomas' Hospital on 9 July 1860 under Matron

Sarah Elizabeth Wardroper Sarah Elizabeth Wardroper (''née'' Bisshopp; 12 November 1813 – 14 December 1892) was an English nurse who was matron of St Thomas' Hospital, London, and the first superintendent of the Nightingale School of Nursing at that hospital. Biog ...

, endowed from the publicly donated Fund raised after the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

to honour

. It is now called the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery & Palliative Care, and is also part of

Portrayal in fiction

*In the 1975 crime film '' Brannigan'', interior shots in an office set with a Thames river view constructed on an upper floor in the north-east corner of the (built but not yet commissioned) North Wing stood in for "

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

" in scenes between

John Wayne Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Go ...

(Chicago police detective Brannigan) and Richard Attenborough (Metropolitan Police Commander Swann). * Graham Swift's 1996 novel '' Last Orders'' features several scenes from the hospital where one of the main characters, Jack Dodds, dies from cancer. *The main building was used as the exterior shot of the fictional Royal Hope Hospital featured in the ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the ...

'' episode " Smith and Jones". *The hospital also featured in the 2002 film '' 28 Days Later'' in which the hospital was abandoned due to the nationwide outbreak of a deadly virus which causes its victims to go insane. *Popular novelist

Lucilla Andrews Lucilla Matthew Andrews Crichton (born 20 November 1919 in Suez, Egypt – d. 3 October 2006 in Edinburgh, Scotland) was a British writer of 33 romance novels from 1954 to 1996. As Lucilla Andrews she specialised in hospital romances, and under ...

trained as a nurse at St Thomas' during the Second World War, and her experiences there are recounted in her autobiography ''No Time for Romance'' as well as being the basis for a series of wartime romances set in a fictional hospital inspired by St Thomas'.

Gallery

File:Naum Gabo Fountain 02.jpg, '' Revolving Torsion'' kinetic sculpture/fountain by Naum Gabo File:Mary Seacole statue, St Thomas' Hospital, front view.jpg, Statue of Mary Seacole at St Thomas' Hospital, by

Martin Jennings Martin Jennings, FRBS (born 31 July 1957, in Chichester, West Sussex) a British sculptor who works in the figurative tradition, in bronze and stone. His statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras railway station was unveiled in 2007 and the stat ...

File:St Thomas's Hospital plaque 1898.jpg, Plaque indicating name included singular genitive s's in the past File:St Thomas Main Entrance.JPG, Main pedestrian entrance from Westminster Bridge Road File:St Thomas Information Sign.JPG, St Thomas' Hospital information sign

References

Citations

Sources

* Nightingale, Florence & Anon., Una and Her Paupers, Diggory Press. . *

External links

Guy's & St Thomas' Foundation Trust

Excerpts from Sir Harold Ridley's biography by David J Apple with some history of the modern hospital
* ttp://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.122/The-Dreadnought-Seamens-hospital.html History of the Dreadnought Seamen's hospitalbr>King's College LondonSurvey of London entry (1951)Website set up by patients of Dr William SargantSt Thomas patient reviews on Lasik-Eyes.co.uk
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Thomas' Hospital (London) English medieval hospitals and almshouses Health in the London Borough of Lambeth History of the London Borough of Lambeth GKT School of Medical Education NHS hospitals in London Christian hospitals Nursing schools in the United Kingdom Teaching hospitals in London Hospitals established in the 12th century Buildings and structures on the River Thames 12th-century establishments in England Voluntary hospitals Physicians of St Thomas' Hospital