How Southampton's Royal South Hants hospital came to be

They were destroyed by fire in the late evening of November 7, 1837.

The warehouse stock included sheet and pipe lead, 2,700 litres of turpentine, oil, varnish, paint, glass, brushes, lamp black, resin, bottle wax and gunpowder.

Seventeen were killed outright, more than 100 injured and five later died of their wounds.

The Fire Fund raised almost £7,000 - more than £600,000 in today’s money - led by a donation of £100 from the young Queen Victoria.

A memorial tablet listing the names of the 22 victims was later erected by the entrance to Holy Rood Church.

The original slabs were replaced in 1951 after the bombing of Holy Rood in 1940. The damaged originals are still stored in the Quilters Vault.

The use of the word “disinterested” means the victims had no financial interest in the building.

Following a public outcry over the losses from the fire, Dr John Bullar opened a small casualty ward at South Front and then in St Mary’s Street, Southampton.

He and his surgeon brother William then acquired a site in Newtown for a permanent 40-bed hospital which was opened in 1844.

Further wings were added in 1851 and 1857.

St. Paul’s Chapel, built in 1857 at the eastern end, completed the hospital’s frontage to Fanshawe Street.

This street was named after the Reverend Charles Fanshawe, one of the founders.

The Bullar brothers were from a Congregationalist family.

They had wards at the Royal South Hants and a road that connects Bitterne Road and Cobden Avenue, named after them.

The children’s author Anne Buller, who also raised money for the new hospital, was their sister.

One of her books, Every-day wonders; or, facts in physiology which all should know, stressed the importance of clean air, healthy food, posture, exercise, bathing, and dental care.

In 1866, following a fundraising campaign by local Masonic lodges, further hospital buildings were started.

This was part of the national campaign to endow the country with a network of Royal Voluntary hospitals, such as Winchester’s Royal Hants County.

The Eyre Crabbe Wing was completed in 1868.

In the same year, the Royal South Hants (RSH) hospital was inaugurated.

In 1896, another new wing with two wards and operating theatres was started.

This was officially opened by Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter Beatrice, later Princess Henry of Battenburg, on February 7, 1900, and named Victoria Jubilee Wing.

By 1933 the hospital had 275 beds.

Patients were mostly admitted on the recommendation of financial donors and their treatment paid for according to their means, as agreed with the hospital Almoner.

This continued until 1948 when the RSH became part of the National Health Service (NHS).

Second World War bombing meant the transfer of many of the Royal South Hants services and operating theatres to places such as Broadlands in Romsey.

A regional Radiotherapy Centre was opened at the RSH in 1964.

As part of the Knowle hospital closure near Fareham - originally the South Hampshire Asylum - a new Department of Psychiatry (DOP) was opened in 1979 to take adult mental health patients from around Southampton.

The DOP closed in 2009.

Antelope House, a new Adult Mental Health Unit, was built nearby with 50 beds and 12 psychiatric intensive care beds.

It is on the former Antelope Ground where Hampshire County Cricket had played cricket and Saints played football in the late 19th century.

In 1991 the sovereignty of the RSH as an independently managed hospital ended after nearly 150 years when it became part of the General Hospital Management Unit, later to become the Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust.

The chapel fell out of use in 1992 and remains today as the only link with the original Fanshawe Street hospital which was demolished in the early 2000s.

Martin Brisland is a tour guide with SeeSouthampton.co.uk .