Glasgow's Lost Hospitals

Old Town’s Hospital and Residence of Robert Cleghorn Esq. by Thomas Fairburn, 1849 (Acc. No 2015/105).

The Town’s Hospital and Poorhouse was originally built in 1733 on Clyde Street, at the edge of Glasgow Green. It housed an infirmary, a work house, an asylum, and beds for the elderly and young orphans. The construction and running of the hospital was financed by charitable contributions from various corporations and societies in Glasgow, and the medical care was provided for free by members of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. A picture of the original building can be seen here.

Division of the city into districts. Glasgow : D. Maclure, printer, 1842.

The hospital closed the doors of its Clyde Street building in 1844, and the poorhouse function was removed to the site of the lunatic asylum on Parliamentary Road. At its new location, the City Poorhouse became one of the largest pauper institutions in Britain (and was often criticised for being overcrowded). The Directors decided to split the city into 17 districts, with a district surgeon appointed to each. A map showing these divisions can be seen here.

From The Royal Hospital for Sick Children : and its dispensary, Glasgow, 1889

The Royal Hospital for Sick Children was opened at Garnethill in December 1882 with 58 beds. A further 16 were added in 1887 when a house next door was converted into an annexe. By the 1900s the building could no longer cope with Glasgow’s growing population. In 1914, it moved to a new building at Yorkhill, giving the hospital its popular name. Fellows of the College were involved in the RHSC when it opened, for example Hector C. Cameron, William Macewen and William Leishman. The great historian of the College, James Finlayson, held the office of Physician to the hospital from 1883 to 1898 and on retiring was elected Consulting Physician.

The number of cases treated at Glasgow's two fever hospitals during outbreaks of typhus, relapsing fever, and smallpox, 1869-72. From 'Report of the City of Glasgow Fever Hospitals' by Dr. James B. Russell (Glasgow, 1873).

There have been several fever hospitals at various sites around Glasgow over the years, including Belvidere in the East end, Parliamentary Road in the North, and Ruchill in the North-West.

The original fever hospital at Parliamentary Road was opened to deal with a typhus outbreak in 1864. A further outbreak in 1869, followed by an epidemic of relapsing fever in 1970, put a great strain on the hospital's accommodation.

Belvidere House, a country house to the East of Glasgow, which became the site of the Belvidere Fever Hospital from 1870. From 'The Old Country Houses of the Old Glasgow Gentry' by Thomas Annan (Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1878).

The fever hospital directors, including the President of the Faculty, decided that a larger and more permanent site was needed, eventually deciding on the Belvidere estate in the city's East end. The Medical Officer of Health, James B. Russell, gave a description of the building and the circumstances surrounding its purchase in his report of the fever hospitals in 1873.

The famous surgeon William Macewen held one of his earliest medical posts after graduation at the recently opened Belvidere Fever Hospital. He was the first resident medical officer in the new establishment in Glasgow's East end.

He was obviously well liked by the staff there, as he was presented with this parchment, a ring, and a scarf pin, when he left in 1871. The superintendent of the existing fever hospital at Parliamentary Road commented that Macewen "gave his whole soul to the work."

Macewen worked in a number of Glasgow hospitals throughout his career, including the Royal Infirmary, the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, and the Western Infirmary.

Mearnskirk Hospital opened in May 1930 primarily for children with surgical tuberculosis. To meet the needs of the Education Health Service, children with long-term orthopaedic conditions were later admitted and beds made available for any outbreak of infantile paralysis.

During the Second World War children were evacuated to the Garrison Hospital in Millport, and Mearnskirk assumed a new role as an Emergency Service Hospital. The hospital never subsequently regained its role as a hospital primarily for children and in 1946 the Surgical Thoracic Unit was opened.

From 1955 onwards, Mearnskirk gradually saw the number of children treated drop to below the number of adults. Improvements in child health and advances in the practice of medicine brought about this turn-around, which also led to the hospital's change of status from Sanatorium to General Hospital in 1960.

By the late 1980s Mearnskirk had become a solely geriatric unit. When the Victoria Infirmary NHS Trust was created in 1992 Mearnskirk was placed within its jurisdiction.