St George's Hospital - Grosvenor Place, London, UK - UK Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

The bronze plaque reads:

"St George’s Hospital was established on this site in 1733 in a country home built in 1719 by James Lane, 2nd Viscount Lanesborough. The hospital was located in the village of Knightsbridge due to the reputation for healthy country air. The three-storey red brick hospital was of simple design and wings were later added to the structure by architect Isaac Ware.

St George’s Hospital quickly outgrew Its original building and in 1826, the trustees commissioned William Wilkins to design a new hospital. Wilkins was also the architect for the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square and University College. Completed in the early 1830s, Wilkins’ building was designed In the classical style from drawings by Nicholas Revett of the choragic monument to Thrassylus at the Acropolis, Athens.

Many of the fathers of modern medicine studied, practiced and taught at St George’s Hospital and its medical school founded in 1831. Chief among these was John Hunter, the father of scientific surgery. Other well-known medical pioneers with careers at St George’s include Edward Jenner, a pioneer of immunology, Thomas Young, professor of natural philosophy to the Royal Institution and Henry Gray renowned for his comprehensive study of anatomy.

During World War II, the entire hospital was given over to casualties of war. The hospital and those who worked there escaped injury due to the war with the exception of a thousand pound bomb that fell on the lecture theatre of the medical school, but fortunately failed to explode.

The campaign to rebuild the hospital outside the centre of London began during World War II. During the 1950s, the hospital was offered a site in Tooting for the new St George’s Hospital and building began there in the 1970s. St George’s moved to its new buildings in Tooting South West London in 1980.

This historic building has now been carefully restored during an extensive four-year project (1988-1991) and transformed into a magnificent hotel which takes the name of the former Lanesborough House on this site."

The St George's University of London website (visit link) gives some additional history of the hospital:

"In 1733, St George's Hospital was opened in Lanesborough House at Hyde Park Corner, and the institution has been training medical students since then. Formal registration of apprentice doctors started in 1751.

Lanesborough House had originally been built in 1719 by the 2nd Viscount Lanesborough, in what was then open countryside at the site of Hyde Park Corner. The new St George's Hospital was arranged on three floors and accommodated 30 patients in two wards, one for men and one for women.

The hospital was gradually extended, and by 1744, it had 15 wards and more than 250 patients.

However, by the 1800s the hospital was falling into disrepair. Funds were raised to build a new 350-bed hospital and a competition was held for its design which was won by William Wilkins.

The old Lanesborough House had to be demolished to make way for the new premises; building began in 1827, and the new hospital was completed by 1844.

By 1859, the bed situation was critical again, so an attic floor was added. However, this did not offer much relief and so a new convalescent hospital, Atkinson Morley's, was opened in Wimbledon, which left more beds at St George's for acute patients.

The Medical School was established 1834 in Kinnerton Street and was incorporated into the hospital in 1868. The Medical School was built in the south-west corner of the hospital site in Hyde Park, with the main entrance in Knightsbridge and the back entrance in Governor Crescent Mews.

However, by the turn of the century, it was suggested that St George's should be rebuilt yet again, but away from its present site. Unfortunately, the intervention of two world wars put pay to any further development plans at this time, but at the end of the 1940s the debate began again in earnest. In 1948, the National Health Service was introduced, and plans for a new site for St George's at The Grove Fever and Fountain Hospitals at Tooting were eventually agreed upon. In 1954, the Grove Hospital became part of St George's, and clinical teaching started in Tooting.

In 1973, building began on the new site. The new Hospital and School buildings were now well advanced. The School was completed, as were two wings of the new Hospital, which today provide a total of 710 beds. There are an additional 280 beds on site in accommodation, which is due for replacement in the next phases of rebuilding the hospital.

In 1976, the doors of the Medical School opened at Tooting and in 1980 St George's Hospital at Hyde Park Corner closed its doors for the final time."