Middlesex Hospital

Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, England. First opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally closed in 2005. Its staff and services were transferred to various sites within the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust. The Middlesex Hospital Medical School, with a history dating back to 1746, merged with UCL Medical School in 1987.

The first Middlesex Hospital, which was named after the county of Middlesex, opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in Windmill Street in 1745. The infirmary started with 15 beds to provide medical treatment for the poor. Funding came from subscriptions and, in 1747, the hospital became the first in England to add lying-in (maternity) beds. Prior to 1773, the wards in the hospital were named as 'Mens long ward', 'Mens square ward up one pair of stairs' or 'two pairs of stairs'. Names of wards later followed after the chief nurse of each ward. Naming of wards for several governors and medical staff of the hospital began with wards Percy, Clayton, Villeneau and Pyke, named after Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, Sir Kenrick Clayton, John Villeneau and the benefactor Pyke, respectively. The large amount local construction work resulted in one-in-four admissions being due to trauma, and Percy ward became the accident ward.

The foundation stone for the second Middlesex Hospital, in Mortimer Street, was laid by the hospital's president, the Earl of Northumberland, in 1755. The central block of the new hospital opened in 1757.

Over the years extra wings were added but, in 1924, it was decided that the building was structurally unsound and an entirely new building would be required. The Duke of York, later King George VI, having visited the hospital on 26 June 1928 to lay the foundation stone of the new building, returned on 29 May 1935 to open the completed building. The hospital had been completely rebuilt, on the same site and in stages, without ever being closed, paid for by more than £1 million of donations from members of the public.

After coming under the management of the Bloomsbury Health Authority in 1980, the Middlesex Hospital became associated with various specialist hospitals in the local area. In 1992 the local urology hospitals, St Paul's, St Peter's and St Philip's, were closed down with services transferred to new accommodation in the Middlesex Hospital.

The Middlesex Hospital Medical School traced its origins to 1746 (a year after the foundation of the Middlesex Hospital), when students were 'walking the wards'. The motto of the medical school, Miseris Succurrere Disco, was provided by one of the deans, Dr William Cayley, from Virgil's passage about Queen Dido aiding a shipwreck: Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco ("Not unacquainted with misfortune myself, I learn to succour the distressed").

At the establishment of the then London University (now University College London), the governors of the Middlesex Hospital declined permission of the former's medical students to use the wards of the Middlesex Hospital for clinical training. This refusal prompted the foundation of the North London Hospital, now University College Hospital, in 1834.

The medical schools of the Middlesex Hospital and University College Hospital merged in 1987 to form the University College and Middlesex School of Medicine (UCMSM). UCMSM itself merged with the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in 1998 to form the UCL Medical School.