University College Hospital - History

History

The hospital was founded as the 'North London Hospital' in 1834, eight years after UCL (then known as the London University), in order to provide clinical training for the "medical classes" of the university, after a refusal by the governors of the Middlesex Hospital to allow students access to that hospital's wards. It soon became known as University College Hospital.

In 1835 Robert Liston became the first professor of clinical surgery at UCH, and the first major operation under ether in Europe was conducted at the hospital by Liston on 21 December 1846. UCH was split from UCL in 1905, and a new hospital building designed by Alfred Waterhouse, known as the Cruciform Building, was opened in 1906. UCH merged with the National Dental Hospital in 1914, and the Royal Ear Hospital in 1920. In 1994 UCH became part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust. The hospital site at the Cruciform Building was closed in 1995 and the building purchased by UCL, for use as the home for the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research and pre-clinical teaching facilities for the UCL Medical School.

A major new £422 million, 75,822 m² hospital was opened in 2005, constructed by a partnership between AMEC, Balfour Beatty and Interserve under the Private Finance Initiative. In November 2008, the £70 million University College Hospital Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Wing was opened, allowing the hospital to offer all women's health services in one place (with the exception of some breast and gynaecology services).