Liverpool Hospitals - Bootle Borough Hospital

In the early 19th century Bootle was a bathing resort, but the area rapidly expanded and became heavily industrialised as docks and warehouses were constructed. The population also increased dramatically as workers arrived to work in the dockland areas, and concerns were raised over the health and welfare of the town's residents, prompting efforts to erect a dispensary in the town and subsequently a hospital. So it was that Bootle General Hospital began life as a dispensary in 1846 to administer to the needs of a population of 3000 and was found to be adequate for 20 years. With the population having increased to 11000, the first Bootle Borough Hospital opened in a private house on Berry Street in 1866. It had room for just five emergency cases.
Bootle Borough Hospital was constructed in 1870-2, adjacent to Langton and Brocklebank Docks, to the designs of C.O. Ellison of Liverpool at a cost of £4,200,  extended in 1885-7 by the same architect. The land for the hospital was gifted by Edward Henry, the 15th Earl of Derby and the foundation stone was laid on the 29th of August 1870 on Derby Road by him and the Mayor of Bootle with the new Bootle Borough Hospital officially opened by the Earl on the 10th of April 1872, constructed to accommodate 26 patients. The hospital's construction was funded by voluntary contributions by local gentlemen including William Geves, T.P. Danson and Thomas Henry Ismay, shipowner and owner of the White Star Line, who also contributed to the hospital's running costs.
The hospital was extended southwards in 1885-7 at a cost of £8,930, when a new wing running down the north side of Nelson Street was added, officially opened by Mr T.H. Ismay and the following year the old hospital wing was renovated. The renovations were paid for by public subscription to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
In 1883/4 Liverpool became the first town or city in Britain to have a regular, hospital-based, horse-drawn ambulance service and Merseyside led the way in terms of its provision; Bootle Borough Hospital's ambulance service is believed to have commenced around 1889 when a Mr W.A. Matheson presented the hospital with a horse drawn ambulance.

King George V Ward (extension)

In the early-1900s the hospital was granted a royal charter and became known as Bootle Royal Borough Hospital and in c1913 it was decided to rebuild the hospital as a memorial to King Edward VII. Six prominent local architects' firms submitted plans in a competition and those of F B Hobbs & O D Black were selected. The outbreak of the First World War disrupted plans and only Hobbs & Black's Nurses' Home was constructed in 1915 on the south side of Nelson Street. Due to the war, the Nurses' Home was first used to accommodate wounded soldiers and was not used for its original intended purpose until after the end of the war in 1919. The title of the hospital was changed in 1930 to The Bootle General Hospital and the foundation stone of a new out-Patients Department was laid by Edward George Villiers, 17th Earl of Derby constructed to the rear of the Nurses' Home alongside the south side of Nelson Street and officially opened on the 4th of March 1932. The outpatients' department contained a large waiting hall, record office, casualty redressing room, massage, electrical, dental, gynaecological, skin and aural departments, medical and surgical consulting rooms with examination cubicles, operating theatre suite, dispensary, and venereal disease department.

The hospital was evacuated in 1939 at the outbreak of the Second World War due to its close proximity to Bootle's docks and fears of it being damaged or destroyed by bombing. It re-opened in 1947 following renovation works. The hospital's casualty department closed in 1966 and the hospital closed entirely in 1974. The site, including the neighbouring Nurses' Home and outpatients department situated on the south side of Nelson Street, was subsequently bought by Mast Laboratories for use as laboratories and offices. 

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2025/02/liverpool-hospitals-royal-southern.html