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Leeds General Infirmary
Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Old George Street Entrance
Shown in West Yorkshire
Geography
Location	Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom
Organisation
Care system	Public NHS
Hospital type	Teaching
Affiliated university	Leeds School of Medicine
Services
Emergency department	Yes, and Major Trauma Centre
Beds	1103
History
Founded	1771 (current site opened 1869)
Links
Website	http://www.leedsth.nhs.uk/patients-visitors/our-hospitals/leeds-general-infirmary/
Lists	Hospitals in England

Leeds General Infirmary, also known as the LGI, is a large teaching hospital based in the centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, and is part of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Its previous name The General Infirmary at Leeds is still sometimes used.^[1][2] It is the second largest hospital in Leeds after St James's University Hospital.

History

The first hospital known as Leeds Infirmary was opened in 1771 on what is now the site of the former Yorkshire Bank in Infirmary Street off City Square, Leeds. Notably, the founding five physicians at the infirmary were all graduates of the University of Edinburgh Medical School.^[3] Construction of the current hospital on its new site in Great George Street started in 1863 to the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott.^[4][5]

Blue plaque on the gatepost

Before drawing up the plans Gilbert Scott and the Infirmary's Chief Physician, Dr Charles Chadwick, visited many of the great contemporary hospitals of Europe. They were particularly impressed by hospitals based on the pavilion plan recommended by Miss Florence Nightingale, and adopted this for the new Infirmary. It featured the latest innovations, with plentiful baths and lavatories throughout, and a system of hydraulic hoists to reduce the labours of attendants and nurses.^[6][7] However, the very high ceilings recommended by Nightingale meant that it could not be adequately heated, and doors to bathrooms were two narrow to admit a wheelchair.^[6]

Though completed in 1868, it had no patients for the first year. Instead it actually housed a temporary loan exhibition (‘National Exhibition of Works of Art’), held to recover some of the £100,000 construction costs.^[6][7] Unfortunately, after half a million visitors, the profit came to only £5.^[6] It was officially opened on 19 May 1869 by Prince Albert, The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII).^[6][7]

The building was extended to designs by George Corson between 1891 and 1892.^[7] The Brotherton Wing, which now faces Millennium Square opened in 1940, the Martin and Wellcome Wings opened in the 1960s, the Worsley Building, which accommodates the Leeds Dental Institute and the Leeds School of Medicine, opened in 1979.^[7] The Clarendon Wing opened in 1984, replacing the former Leeds Women's and Children's Hospital, and now houses the Leeds Children's Hospital.^[8] The Jubilee Wing, named in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Health Service, which provides new Emergency Department services as well as housing regional cardiothoracic and neurosurgery facilities, opened in 1998. It is the main entrance and provides internal links to all other sections.^[7][8]

Buildings

Victorian buildings

Great George Street frontage. Porch (left), East Wing (centre) and 1892 East extension (right)

Though the main entrance was on Thoresby Place, the south frontage on Great George Street provided the main decorative display, with plainer more functional facades elsewhere. This Victorian Gothic frontage is in red brick with stone dressings, red granite pillars, slate roof with pinnacles and Venetian Gothic windows.^[5][9]

The original plan largely follows the layout of Lariboisière Hospital (1853) in France:^[5] a 'pavilion' arrangement providing cross lighting and ventilation for the wards and a Winter garden in a central glazed courtyard.^[10] The garden remains, but the glazing was removed in 1911.^[5]

There are three wings North and South of this courtyard, the central South one being the George Street entrance,
which has a porch in Porte-cochère style. Inside it has a reception hall with a baronial fireplace leading to a glazed roof corridor with columns featuring carvings of medicinal plants by William Brindley and a mosaic floor. This leads to a staircase with decorative ironwork leading up to a landing with stained glass windows. (As the site is on a slope, this is the level of the Thoresby Place entrance which is the primary floor for patients. The lower Great George Street level was used for administration and storerooms, the upper two floors for wards.) This opens onto a corridor going around the garden. In the corridor is a Potts clock and just along the corridor is a chapel dedicated to Saint Luke which opened in 1869.^[5][9]

The three wings on the south are joined by single storey closed colonades to make the South facade. A further, but open colonade East and another wing is a faithful copy of the original style by George Corson.^[5]

Interior of old building

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  Central courtyard garden
  

  
  

  
  


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  Great George Street entrance hall
  

  
  

  
  


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  Corridor from the entrance hall
  

  
  

  
  


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  Staircase up to the main level of the hospital
  

  
  

  
  


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  Landing at the top of the staircase
  

  
  

  
  


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  Potts clock
  

  
  

  
  


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  The Chapel
  

  
  

  
  

Other Victorian buildings

On the West of Thoresby Place is the School of Medicine, an 1893 Grade II* listed building by W. H. Thorp in red brick, stone dressings and slate roofs in Perpendicular Revival style.^[11] Some of the entrance hall is lined with Burmantofts Faience.^[5]

In similar style is the 1897 Nurses' Home, also by Thorp, which is now north of the Brotherton Wing, and facing it on the entry road from Calverley Street.^[5]

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  Leeds School of Medicine
  

  
  

  
  


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  Nurses' Home
  

  
  

  
  

Brotherton Wing

Brotherton Wing

The Brotherton Wing on Calverley Street is in Portland Stone, in keeping with the Leeds Civic Hall on the other side of the road.^[5][10] It was the gift of, and named after, Charles Frederick Ratcliffe Brotherton (1882–1949) and opened in 1940.^[10] First planned in 1926, in a then modern style, it has semi-circular balconies at the South End, where it was intended that patients would rest and enjoy fresh air, which did not prove to be the case because of the rise of the motor car and other pollution.^[10]

Clarendon Wing

Clarendon Wing

This 1984 building is Leeds Children's Hospital. It is separate building of dark brick and grey slate with four storeys around a central courtyard. The Leeds Inner Ring Road runs in a tunnel underneath it.^[5]

Jubilee Wing

Jubilee Wing

The Jubilee Wing opened in 1998 at a cost of £92 million.^[7][12] It is both a major expansion in the form of a north extension to the hospital and also provides links between the various buildings, with a new major entrance off Clarendon Way. It has an L-shaped plan of seven storeys in red brick and white metal cladding and barrel vaulted roofs. There is a large curved glazed entrance.^[5] Outside, the practicalities of vehicle and pedestrian traffic are dealt with in Jubilee Square, landscaped in decorative brickwork by Tess Jaray with flower beds and sculptures by Tom Lomax.^[12] It has a helicopter landing pad for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance Service.^[13]

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  Connecting the old buildings with the new
  

  
  

  
  


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  One of the bridging corridors between buildings
  

  
  

  
  


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  One of the sculptures outside the Jubilee Wing
  

  
  

  
  

Famous and infamous people associated with the hospital

These are as follows:

• Between 20 September 2006 and 28 September 2006 the Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond was treated at the hospital after suffering critical injuries as a result of a jet power car crash whilst filming at the airfield at ex-RAF Elvington near York.^[14]
  

• Former Countdown host Richard Whiteley was treated at the hospital and died on 26 June 2005 following heart problems two days after an unsuccessful operation for endocarditis.^[15]
  

• It has been alleged that Jimmy Savile sexually abused individuals at the hospital, as well as performing sex acts on dead bodies in the hospital mortuary.^[16]
  

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  Labour Party MP Jo Cox died at the hospital on 16 June 2016 following an attack after meeting with constituents in the nearby village of Birstall, where she was shot and stabbed.^[17]
  

See also

• List of hospitals in England

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leeds General Infirmary.

• Leeds NHS Teaching Hospitals Trust website


• 
  Historic England. "Details from image database (465138)". Images of England.
  

Coordinates: 53°48′07″N 1°33′03″W / 53.80208°N 1.55083°W / 53.80208; -1.55083