Skip to main content

Secondary sourceArtifactrebuilt 1871 (founded c. 1100s)

St Thomas' Hospital

rebuilt 1871 (founded c. 1100s)

A London teaching hospital whose Victorian buildings, rebuilt in 1871, followed the pavilion-ward design Florence Nightingale championed and which housed her Nightingale Training School.

The hospital rebuilt in 1871 on pavilion principles she advocated housed her Nightingale Training School for nurses.

Ask Florence Nightingale about this sourceView the original(opens in new tab)
A large multi-storey grey concrete hospital building with many rows of windows, with the sign 'St Thomas' Hospital' on its roof, beside the River Thames with trees, barges and a grey sky.
St Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth, London.

About this source

What it is

St Thomas' Hospital is a major hospital in London with roots going back to the Middle Ages. It moved from Southwark to its present site in Lambeth, where new buildings designed by Henry Currey opened in 1871, with the foundation stone laid by Queen Victoria in 1868.

Why it matters

The Lambeth hospital was one of the first to use the 'pavilion principle' of separate ward buildings, an idea popularised by Florence Nightingale in her writings on hospitals. It also housed her Nightingale Training School for nurses, making it a key site in the history of modern nursing and hospital design, connecting Nightingale's ideas to real buildings still used today.

Look closer

  • Why might spacing out ward buildings have mattered for the health of patients in Nightingale's time?
  • What does it tell us that Nightingale's ideas influenced the architecture of a major hospital?
  • What might this photograph not tell us about conditions inside the hospital?

This artifact is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Florence Nightingale on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Florence Nightingale sources

Meet the AI Florence Nightingale →
Polar area diagram titled 'Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East' with two rose charts of blue, red, and black wedges for April 1854 to March 1856, with explanatory notes below.Document

Primary source

Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East

Florence Nightingale · 1858

Pen and ink sketch of a large multi-gabled Tudor-style country house with tall chimneys, surrounded by trees and shrubs. Handwritten caption at bottom reads 'Embley, Hampshire' and 'Sketched by Florence Nightingale'.Painting

Primary source

Embley Park, Hampshire

Florence Nightingale · 1854

Artifact

Primary source

Recording of the voice of Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale · 1890

Pen-and-ink sketch of a hospital ward. A woman in a long dark dress stands at right beside a wounded man seated on a bed. Other patients lie in beds along the left, and more beds are visible through a doorway at right. Handwritten numbers appear at upper left.Painting

Primary source

Lithograph of Florence Nightingale, 1854

1854

Painting of a hospital hall at Scutari with a tall arched doorway opening onto a city view. A woman in a grey dress stands center-left among soldiers, Turkish-dressed figures, and officers. A wounded soldier lies on a stretcher while a kneeling man tends him. A soldier in red points toward the doorway.Painting

Secondary source

The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari

Jerry Barrett · 1857

Ready when you are

Start chatting with Florence Nightingale now.

20 messages free · No credit card · Available in 50+ languages.

Trial Humy for freeGet a quote for institutions