Royal Naval Hospital

The earliest surviving Royal Naval Hospital complex (not counting Greenwich) is on Illa del Rei, Port Mahon, Minorca (established 1711, rebuilt 1771-6, restored 2011)

A Royal Naval Hospital (RNH) was a hospital operated by the British Royal Navy for the care and treatment of sick and injured naval personnel. No Royal Naval Hospitals survive in operation, although some have become civilian hospitals.

Early history

Individual surgeons had been appointed to naval vessels since Tudor times.^[1] During the seventeenth century, the pressures on practitioners grew, as crews began to be exposed to unfamiliar illnesses on increasingly long sea-voyages. One response, as proposed in 1664, was the provision of hospital ships to accompany the fleet on more distant expeditions. Another was the provision of temporary shore-based hospitals, such as those briefly set up during the Anglo-Dutch Wars in such locations as Ipswich, Rochester, Harwich and Plymouth (the latter being established on a more permanent footing in 1689).^[2] By the turn of the century, permanent hospital provision was being contemplated for overseas bases; one was set up in Jamaica by Admiral John Benbow in 1701. More were to follow, both at home and abroad.

Examples

Royal Naval Hospitals included:

United Kingdom

• Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, Gosport; opened 1753, changed to civilian hospital (1990s) and renamed Royal Hospital Haslar, closed 2009.
• Royal Naval Hospital Stonehouse, Plymouth; opened 1760, closed 1995, converted into flats.
• Royal Naval Hospital Great Yarmouth; opened 1793, relocated 1815, transferred to NHS 1958, converted to residential flats 1993.
• Royal Naval Hospital Deal, Kent; opened 1800, closed 1930 becoming Royal Naval (later Royal Marine) School of Music.
• Royal Naval Hospital Paignton; opened 1800, closed 1816.
• Melville Hospital, Chatham; opened 1828, replaced by RNH Chatham in 1905, converted into RM barracks extension, demolished c.1960.
  • Royal Naval Hospital Chatham (Gillingham, Kent); opened 1905 (replacing an earlier establishment), transferred to NHS 1961, now Medway Maritime Hospital (NHS).
• Royal Naval Hospital, Haulbowline, Ireland; began as a temporary hospital (1820),^[2] established on a permanent footing in 1862.^[3] Transferred with the rest of the Naval Dockyard to the Irish Government in 1923.
• Royal Naval Hospital, Portland, Dorset; opened 1901, closed 1957.
• Butlaw Naval Hospital, South Queensferry; small hospital opened c.1910, expanded during World War I, closed 1928. Hospital reopened on Port Edgar barracks site during World War II.^[4]

Overseas

Royal Naval Hospital buildings of 1821 in Port Royal, Jamaica; Admiral Benbow had established the island's first naval hospital in 1701.

• Royal Naval Hospital, Port Mahon, Menorca (1711) ceded to Spain 1782 but remained in use thereafter until c.1960
• Royal Naval Hospital, Port Royal, Jamaica (1743) rebuilt 1755 and 1818, closed 1905.
• Old Naval Hospital, Gibraltar (1741) closed in 1922; buildings survive having been converted into housing.
  • Royal Naval Hospital Gibraltar (1963) (established as a Military Hospital in 1903), closed in 2008
• Royal Naval Hospital, Mauritius
• Royal Naval Hospital, Bermuda (1818), closed in 1957
• Royal Naval Hospital, Trincomalee Garrison, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka)
• Royal Naval Hospital, Bighi, Malta (1832), closed 1970
  • Royal Naval Hospital, Mtarfa, Malta (1970) (established as a Military Hospital in 1912), closed 1978
• Royal Naval Hospital, Wanchai, Hong Kong (1873), destroyed 1941 (site became Ruttonjee Hospital)
  • New naval hospital (War Memorial Hospital) Hong Kong (1949), closed 1959 (site taken over by the nearby Matilda Hospital)

Greenwich

Greenwich Hospital, which predated all the above, was established on somewhat different grounds, as it cared for retired seamen rather than those on active service:

• The Royal Hospital for Seamen in Greenwich; a home for pensioners, established 1692, closed 1869 but exists as a charity.

References