The early nineteenth century saw a rapid expansion on the northern side of Liverpool, with a growth in population and an increasingly busy dock area. This resulted in an increase of accidents and emergencies on the docks seeing a need for hospital accommodation and for facilities in dealing with accident cases. In March 1833 a meeting was held in the Committee Room of the Manchester and Bolton Railway Company as the result of which a Committee was formed to consider the establishment of a new hospital. On the 10th of April 1833 a meeting was held in the Sessions House, Chapel Street, presided over by the Mayor of Liverpool, at which it was resolved that "... steps should be taken immediately to establish a public hospital in the northern part of the town, to be confined, as much as possible to the reception of accidents and severe cases". On the 10th of March 1834 the Northern Hospital, with 20 beds, was opened at No. 1 Leeds Street, a large house belonging to R.B. Blundell Hollinshead Blundell of Deysbrook, West Derby with the first patient being admitted on the 12th of March 1834. This new hospital was in "... a neighbourhood eminently calculated to prove the benefit of such an Institution, being in the immediate vicinity of the canal and the Princes and Clarence Docks - a part of the town where accidents requiring the utmost promptitude of treatment are daily occurring." By 1838 the Hospital had expanded to fill three houses, now with 106 beds, but the need for more extensive accommodation continued. In 1843 the Corporation offered a site in Great Howard Street and a purpose-built hospital, designed by the architect Edward Welch, was opened there on the 30th of September 1845 with the old Leeds Street premises being vacated.
In 1849 and 1850, labourers and sailors made up over 64% of patients and with the condition of this hospital deteriorating, in 1882 the opinion was expressed that "... the insanitary conditions and general inconvenience of the arrangements within the hospital made it necessary for it to be re-built". With a £60,000 donation from the David Lewis Trust a new hospital was planned. Interestingly, Liverpool's Northern Hospital was the first to use the horse-drawn ambulance in England in 1883.
David Lewis was of course the owner of Lewis's Department store in Liverpool; the first department store of its kind in England and following his death on the 4th of December 1885, in 1893, the David Lewis Trust was founded by Benn Wolfe Levy, one of his executors. In his will, David Lewis left both his fortune and a wish…that his money be used to benefit the poorer people of Manchester and Liverpool. (He specifically wished for it to be used for charitable purposes). The foundation stone of the new building was laid on the 19th of October 1896 and the building was opened by H.R.H Princess Louise on the 13th of March 1902 as the David Lewis Northern Hospital. This building occupied a site bounded on one side by Great Howard Street and on the other by Leeds Street. Although various additions to the building were made, the hospital never again left this site (except during the 2nd World War period, 1939 - 1947, when the hospital was evacuated to St. Katherine's College, Childwall). The David Lewis Northern Hospital was closed in 1978 prior to the opening of the new Royal Liverpool Hospital.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2025/01/liverpool-hospitals-ear-nose-and-throat.html
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