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The origins of the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School can be found at a meeting of gentlemen at the home of Dr Benjamin Golding to discuss setting up a charitable institution to be known as the West London Infirmary. This was to be a hospital with training facilities, to supply the want of a University, so far as medical education is concerned. Golding drew up a medical education plan in 1822.
The hospital opened in 1823 in Villiers Street and in 1827 was named Charing Cross Hospital. New Medical School facilities opened in Agar Street in 1834 with 22 students, and again in Chandos Place in 1881. The School was enlarged in 1894, adding physical, biological and pathological laboratories and the curriculum was lengthened from 4 to 5 years.
19th Century alumni from the School include the explorer David Livingstone who was a student there between1839-1840. T.H. Huxley took his medical training at the School, publishing his first paper in 1845 whilst a studentOn a hitherto undescribed structure in the human hair sheath’. It describes the inner layer of the root sheath of the hair follicle since known as Huxley's layer.
The Westminster Hospital Medical School began in 1834 and, by 1837, each surgeon was allowed three 'cubs', as the students were known. Formal development for training and provision of a building in Dean Street were made in 1841. After financial difficulties in 1847-1848, the School was re-launched in 1849 and a museum of anatomy established.
The lecturers effectively subsidised the students as they financed the School by paying into the School fund an amount equal to the value of their Chair. A purpose built School behind the hospital was opened in 1852, but as the School expanded, a new building was required and opened in Caxton Street in 1885.
The School's 19th Century famous alumni include John Snow, anesthetist and epidemiologist who administered chloroform to Queen Victoria during childbirth in 1853 and 1857. He identified the source of the 1854 Golden Square outbreak of cholera as being the water supply in Broad Street. The water pumps were shut down and the epidemic subsided.
The Royal College of Chemistry was founded in 1845 by subscription as a necessary national resource for industrial and technical development. Royal patronage came from Prince Albert, who was President of the Council. The founders, John Lloyd Bullock and John Gardner appointed August Wilhelm Hofmann as the first Professor. He held the post until returning to Germany in 1865.
The College was situated in Oxford Street, backing on to Hanover Square. In 1853 the Royal College of Chemistry merged with the Royal School of Mines based in Jermyn Street, though teaching continued at the Oxford Street premises until the removal of much of the School of Mines teaching to South Kensington in 1872.
The Government School of Mines and of Science as Applied to the Arts was founded by Sir Henry de la Beche in 1851. He also largely founded and was Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, responsible for the Museum of Economic (later Practical) Geology, the Library of the Museum and Survey and the Mining Record Office.
De la Beche created a school which laid the foundations for the teaching of science in Britain, and which has its legacy today at Imperial. Prince Albert was a patron and supporter of the later developments in science teaching, which led to the Royal College of Chemistry becoming part of the Royal School of Mines and to the creation of the Royal College of Science and eventually to these institutions becoming part of his plan for South Kensington being an educational region.
St Mary's Hospital was founded in 1845 by Samuel Lane, surgeon and anatomist, and from its inception was intended to be a teaching hospital. It opened in 1851 with two students. The Medical School was founded in 1854 and the number of students soon rose to 40. Samuel Lane donated his collection of specimens for the pathological museum at the hospital.
The School gradually grew and in the 1880s there was a much needed expansion of facilities, with pathology laboratories particularly being enhanced.
Famous alumni include The Lien Wu who entered the School on a Scholarship in 1899. He returned to China and became Director of the Imperial Army Medical College, was Chief Medical Officer to the Manchurian Plague Service and an historian of Chinese medicine.
Sir Almroth Wright joined St Mary's in 1902 as Director of the Inoculation Department, later the Wright Fleming Institute until 1946. His great contribution to medicine was vaccine therapy, which was to be so effective in saving the lives of men of the allied armies during the Great War.
