Fever Hospital
Fever Hospital
Bootle used to have 2 hospitals: the ‘Royal Borough’ and the fever hospital (just across the street from Ykids!)
The ‘Royal Borough’ - first opened 1872- was designed to treat 26 patients. Of course, it soon had to be extended. The hospital had to pay over £8500 for a new wing – equal to hundreds of thousands today! The whole building was demolished and rebuilt in 1913 – King Edward VII had recently died; people decided to build a brand-new hospital as a memorial. Most of the patients were soldiers from the battlefields during the First World War. Soldiers didn’t just have gunshot wounds. Other injuries came from being sprayed by bomb shrapnel (sharp pieces of metal) or being poisoned by gas.
Old Victorian Ambulance
Children in Hospital Beds
Our own Fever Nurse!
Did you know?
You can still see part of the building now; it’s just down the road from Ykids (in front of Hawthornes school on the corner of Fernhill Road and Linacre Lane).
Question time!
What do you think was the most common way that soldiers got injured during the war?
A) Getting poisoned by gas
B) Getting sprayed by shrapnel from artillery shells
C) Getting burnt
D) Getting shot
As well as soldiers, many workers from docks and factories were treated. The Victorians didn’t care much about health and safety. Many companies just wanted to make as much money as possible. Putting in safety features would have cost a lot! Unfortunately, this led to people suffering from disgusting diseases and icky illnesses.
Our second hospital was the fever hospital which opened 1886. It was designed specifically for those with contagious diseases (which spread very easily). The Victorians realised that people with contagious diseases couldn't stay in places with other patients; they would just infect everybody else. As a result, special buildings were introduced which only treated those with infectious illnesses. Unlike the fancy Borough building, most of the site consisted of wooden huts (which were easier to clean).
Bootle used to have 2 hospitals: the ‘Royal Borough’ and the fever hospital (just across the street from Ykids!)
The ‘Royal Borough’ - first opened 1872- was designed to treat 26 patients. Of course, it soon had to be extended. The hospital had to pay over £8500 for a new wing – equal to hundreds of thousands today! The whole building was demolished and rebuilt in 1913 – King Edward VII had recently died; people decided to build a brand-new hospital as a memorial. Most of the patients were soldiers from the battlefields during the First World War. Soldiers didn’t just have gunshot wounds. Other injuries came from being sprayed by bomb shrapnel (sharp pieces of metal) or being poisoned by gas.
Map of Bootle Hospital
Did you know?
Other ‘treatments’ for TB included having a massage... with vinegar! Some people were lucky enough to get a disgusting drink. Cod liver oil, anyone?
Question time!
In Victorian times, what was the life expectancy of the poor in Liverpool?
A) 19 years
B) 30 years
C) 80 years
A common disease at the time was tuberculosis (TB) - this was a killer because it destroyed the lungs. Before antibiotics, one ‘treatment’ was to sit everyone outside (people thought fresh air would cure the illness).
The hospital had become a boys’ school by the 1950s, with classes being held in the huts.
Victorian Liverpool was a risky place to live and work in: people didn’t live very long. Thankfully a few things have happened to enable people to live longer: health and safety laws were introduced, the air is cleaner without all the factories that burnt coal, people understand hygiene better and do things to make themselves safer (such as sewers) and we also have more advanced medicines like antibiotics and vaccines.
Did you know?
Liverpool was the first place in Britain to have an ambulance – on horse-drawn carriage! The Borough Hospital received its first ambulance around 1889.
Did you know?
You can still see part of the building now; it’s just down the road from Ykids (in front of Hawthornes school on the corner of Fernhill Road and Linacre Lane).
Question time!
True/false: Other treatments for TB included drinking fish oil and being massaged in vinegar.
Did you know?
After the fever hospital closed, a skeleton was discovered under the ground nearby! It probably wasn’t a real one, though – doctors would have used a plastic skeleton to study the human body.
Hospital Building today!
Click on the map to return to the Horrible History Map page
