St Bartholomew's Hospital



St Bartholomew's Hospital, also known as Barts, is a hospital in Smithfield in the City of London, England.

History
It was founded in 1123 by Raherus or Rahere (died 1144, and entombed in the nearby priory church of St Bartholomew-the-Great), a favourite courtier of King Henry I. Following the dissolution of the monasteries which, although did not affect the running of Barts as a hospital, left in it a precarious position by removing its only income, it was refounded by Henry VIII in December 1546, on the signing of an agreement granting the hospital to the City of London, which was reaffirmed in the Letters Patent of January 1547 endowing it with properties and income. The hospital became legally known as the "House of the Poore in West Smithfield in the suburbs of the City of London of Henry VIII's Foundation", although the title was never used by the general public. Upon the foundation of the National Health Service in 1948, it officially became known as St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

It is the oldest surviving hospital in England and has an important current role as well as a long history and architecturally important buildings. The Henry VIII entrance to the hospital shown in the photograph is still the main public entrance; the statue of Henry VIII is the only public statue of him in London.

The main square was designed by James Gibbs in the 1730s, of the four original blocks only three survive, this includes the block containing the Great Hall and two flanking blocks that contained wards. The first wing to be built was the North wing, in 1732. It is the North Wing that contains the Great Hall and the Hogarth murals. The South Wing followed in 1740, the West Wing in 1752 and finally the East Wing in 1769. In 1859, a fountain was placed in its centre along with a small garden.

St Bartholomew's Hospital has existed on the same site for almost 900 years, surviving both the Great Fire of London and The Blitz. Its museum, which is open Tuesdays to Fridays each week, shows how medical care has developed over this time and explains the history of the hospital. Part-way around the exhibition is a door which opens on to the hospital's official entrance hall. On the walls of the staircase are two stunning murals painted by William Hogarth, The Pool of Bethesda (1736) and The Good Samaritan (1737). These are worth a visit in their own right but can only be seen at close quarters on Friday afternoons. Hogarth was so outraged by the news that the hospital was commissioning art from Italian painters that he insisted on doing these murals free of charge, as a demonstration that English painting was equal to the task. The Pool of Bethesda is of particular medical interest, as it depicts a scene in which Christ cures the sick: display material on the first floor speculates in modern medical terms about the ailments from which Christ's patients in the painting are suffering.

The room to which the staircase leads is the hospital's Great Hall, a striking double-height room in Baroque style. Although there are a few paintings inside the Great Hall, nearly all are on movable stands: the walls themselves are mostly given over to the display of the very many large, painted plaques which list, in detail, the sums of money given to the hospital by its benefactors. These make diverting reading: the visitor should note that some of the amounts, which are expressed in pounds, shillings and pence, are odd because they are the remains of an estate after all other bequests have been settled; others look strange because they were given as round amounts of guineas, a guinea being twenty-one shillings (£1.05 in decimal currency). When translated into pounds and shillings these give some odd-looking results: for example fifty-five guineas would be listed as £57 15/–.

The Great Hall is part of a building which forms one side of the hospital's central square. As of 2003, this area is the site of some building work as the hospital is redeveloped (see below), but the work is masked from the main square by large murals and the overall effect is thus not too badly diminished.

Interestingly, Barts is unique amongst English hospitals, being a parish in its own right. The Anglican parish church of St Bartholomew-the-Less is the only survivor of Bart's original five chapels, which failed to survive the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. The church has a 15th century tower and vestry, and its links to the hospital can be seen not only in its early-20th century stained glass window of a nurse, a gift of the Worshipful Company of Glaziers, but also in the plaques and commemerations that adorn the inside of the building.

Throughout the whole of the 19th century, the Hardwick family were major benefactors of the hospital. Thomas Hardwick Junior (1752–1825), Philip Hardwick (1792–1870), and Philip Charles Hardwick (1822–92) were all architects/surveyors to Barts. Philip Hardwick was also employed in the rebuilding of the church of St Bartholomew-the-Less in 1823 and also contributed the fountain in the courtyard.



After a controversial review of London hospitals in the 1990s, Barts was threatened with closure, and lost its Accident and Emergency (A&E) department, whose absence is still hotly resented locally. The nearest A&E is now at the Royal London Hospital, a sister hospital of Barts which is a couple of miles away in Whitechapel. The Minor Injuries unit at Barts aims to replace A&E for small cases (which often represent a significant part of the workload of A&E services), but urgent and major work goes to the Royal London or other hospitals. Many campaign stickers demanding the reopening of Barts's A&E may still be seen in shops in the area, and the events of September 11, 2001 and July 7, 2005 increased concern about A&E provision so close to the City, which presents a tempting terrorist target.

A common view of some medical staff is that it is difficult for hospitals without an A&E to keep at the cutting edge of skills, acquire interesting and varied cases, etc. Nevertheless, the new plan is for Barts to develop as a centre of excellence in cardiac care and cancer, and to this end major investment and redevelopment is taking place at the site.

Barts, along with the Royal London and London Chest Hospitals, is part of Barts and The London NHS Trust. There are 388 beds in Barts, 675 beds in the Royal London & 109 beds in the London Chest Hospital.

In 1843 St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College was established to train medics although considered to have been started by John Abernethy when the hospital built a theatre for his lectures at the beginning of the century. In 1995 the college, along with that attached to the Royal London, merged into Queen Mary, University of London but maintains a distinctive identity to this day. It is now known as Barts and The London, or more formally Barts and The London, Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry. It occupies some space at the Barts site in Smithfield, with a presence a short walk away at Charterhouse Square. The main preclinical teaching domain of the medical school is in Whitechapel at the new and award winning Blizard Building. The building also houses the educational facility 'The Centre of the Cell', and the Institute of Cell and Molecular Science.

The present School of Nursing and Midwifery was formed in 1994 from merging the Schools from St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital to become the St Bartholomew School of Nursing & Midwifery. In 1995 the new School was incorporated into City University, London. Both Schools have a strong and respected history dating back over 120 years and have produced many nurse leaders and educators.

Notable alumni

 * Anthony Askew
 * John Abernethy
 * John Badley
 * Elizabeth Blackwell
 * W.H.R. Rivers
 * William Harvey
 * Martyn Lloyd-Jones
 * Robert Morrison
 * James Paget
 * Percivall Pott
 * W G Grace
 * Graham Chapman
 * James Underwood

In popular culture
The hospital, specifically one of its chemical laboratories, is the location of the very first meeting of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson in Arthur Conan Doyle's 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet.