General Lying-In Hospital

The General Lying-In Hospital was opened in April 1767 as the Westminster New Lying-in Hospital, on the north side of Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, with Dr. John Leake as its first physician. Early in the 1820s the governors decided to move to new premises. They acquired a building lease of a plot of ground with 100-foot frontage at grid reference TQ308797 on the east side of York Road, Lambeth. The new building was designed by Henry Harrison and cost about £3,000. On 22 September, 1828, the minutes record that “On Friday Morning a Patient was delivered of a Son in the New Hospital and the Committee met this day in the new Hospital for the first time.” The name “Westminster” was dropped from the title and the institution was...