North Western Hospital xx Hampstead Hospital

The Metropolitan Asylums Board was established in 1867 and soon acquired three sites for infectious diseases hospitals. One of these was near Pond Street, Hampstead, where on 25 January 1870 Hampstead Hospital opened in temporary buildings for the reception of patients suffering from relapsing fever. Nurses were provided by the Anglican Sisters of Saint Margaret, East Grinstead. The hospital closed when this epidemic subsided, but was reopened on 1 December 1870 to admit patients suffering from a particularly virulent form of small pox, which was raging through London. This epidemic had passed by 1873. From 1873 to 1876 Hampstead Hospital was used for the accommodation of mentally handicapped children until the Darenth Schools in Kent were opened by the Metropolitan Asylums Board. Meanwhile permanent smallpox and fever hospitals were being built on the Hampstead site despite vigorous local opposition.

In the autumn of 1876 another epidemic necessitated the use of Hampstead Hospital for the treatment of smallpox again. Hampstead residents brought a series of expensive lawsuits against the Metropolitan Asylums Board to force it to close the hospital or severely restrict its use for smallpox or fever patients. As a result, a Royal Commission appointed to consider these problems in 1881 recommended that smallpox patients should be treated on hospital ships or adjoining riverbanks on isolated parts of the River Thames. Hampstead Hospital (renamed the North Western Hospital) now became entirely a fever hospital, treating mainly cases of diphtheria and scarlet fever. The Metropolitan Asylums Board infectious diseases hospitals were gradually removed from the provisions of the Poor Law, until after 1 January 1892 every citizen of London suffering from infectious disease was legally entitled to admission to an Metropolitan Asylums Board hospital for treatment free of charge.

In 1930 the Hospital was transferred to the management of the London County Council and was administered by the Central Public Health Committee, later the Hospitals and Medical Services Committee. In 1948 the North Western Hospital became part of the National Health Service as one of the Royal Free Hospital Group of teaching hospitals. For a report on the North Western Hospital by King's Fund Visitors in 1956 when it had become an integral part of the Royal Free Hospital see A/KE/737/14. The new Royal Free Hospital was subsequently built on this site.