Abstract
Glasgow was late in establishing a children’s hospital – 22 years after Edinburgh (1860) and 30 years after London (1852). Its first home in a converted town house in Garnethill soon proved too small, despite the addition of a children’s dispensary nearby, and in 1914, a purpose-built hospital for sick children was opened, close to the university to facilitate teaching, training and research.
The centenary of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children at Yorkhill and its relocation to the South Glasgow Hospitals Campus are marked by this social history. It traces the development of the RHSC in the interwar years, characterised by poverty, charity and infectious disease, through the impact of the NHS, with the rise of paediatric sub-specialties, the building of the Queen Mother’s Maternity Hospital and a new children’s hospital with its familiar black and white ward stack. The testimonies of former patients, parents and staff reflect the great changes in relationships between them, as well as in medical and nursing care, patterns of disease, technological innovation and clinical paediatrics.
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