Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
The Royal Waterloo Hospital was founded in 1816 by John Bunnell Davis as the Universal Dispensary for Children. The name was changed in 1821 to the Royal Universal Dispensary for Children. It occupied premises at St Andrew's Hill, Doctor's Commons, in the City of London. Between 1823 and 1824 a new building was erected on the corner of Waterloo Bridge Road and Stamford Street in Lambeth. It was intended to admit in-patients and consequently the Institution was renamed the Royal Universal Infirmary for Children. Unfortunately John Bunnell Davis died suddenly before the new building was completed. With his death the hospital lost some of its influential supporters and found itself heavily burdened with debt. The plan to admit in-patients had to be postponed.
The name of the institution was again altered in 1843 to the Royal Infirmary for Children and in 1852 to the Royal Infirmary for Children and Women. This second change was as the result of the receipt of an annual bequest of £450 from the Hayles Estate on condition that the hospital admitted in-patients and treated women. The first in-patients entered the hospital in 1856. Further changes of name took place on the extension of the hospital in 1875, when the title Royal Hospital for Women and Children was adopted, and in 1903, when on the rebuilding of the Hospital the name of the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women was chosen.
In 1948 the hospital became part of the National Health Service as one of the Saint Thomas' Hospital Group, providing beds for children, general medical and surgical, skin and psychiatric patients. It was also used for the training of medical students. The Royal Waterloo Hospital closed on 27th July 1976.