Charing Cross Hospital Medical School

Charing Cross Hospital and Medical School in 1881, in Charing Cross

It was founded in 1818, as part of the Charing Cross Hospital, by Dr Benjamin Golding, to meet the needs of the poor who flocked to the cities in search of work in the new factories. This was a revolutionary notion at a time when London doctors mainly practised privately. The hospital was well patronised, and soon had to move to larger premises in Agar Street (near Villiers Street, off the Strand), where it first became known as Charing Cross in 1834.

Buildings on this site were expanded several times, but by the late 1950s it became clear that no further expansion would be possible in the area, and the hospital would have to move. Two sites were identified – a rebuild of the Fulham Hospital in west London, and a new-build site at Northwick Park in Harrow, north London. Whilst many staff supported the idea of moving to the northern suburbs, the Fulham site was selected and building began in the late 1960s. Northwick Park Hospital was built as well, but to a reduced budget.

The modern hospital tower in Fulham

The new hospital opened in 1973, still known as Charing Cross Hospital. To avoid confusion, for the first ten years, correspondence was referred to "Charing Cross Hospital at Fulham".

From the opening of the new hospital in 1973, the medical school was contained entirely within the hospital tower (in the east wing laboratory block), but in 1976 the medical school's own building (the Reynolds Building) was completed. Housing the CXHMS students’ union (now part of Imperial College School of Medicine Students' Union, it saw the start of many ongoing traditions, including the annual "Invasion of London", in which garishly-dressed students persuade commuters and other city folk to donate to charity.[1] A large brass Maltese cross was brought from the old (Strand) site to the bar to serve as the students' emblem, and newly qualified doctors traditionally "Sign the Cross" on graduation.

• Carys Bannister
• Patrick Dixon
• Joseph Fayrer
• Robert Heptinstall, chair of the Pathology department, Johns Hopkins Hospital
• Rosalind Hurley
• Thomas Henry Huxley
• Sir Bruce Keogh, Medical Director of the NHS
• Louise Lake-Tack, Governor-General of Antigua and Barbuda, 2007-
• David Livingstone
• Christine Moffatt
• William Kitchen Parker
• Ann Redgrave, wife of Steve Redgrave
• Edith Summerskill
• Jane Yardley, author
• Khushwant Lal Wig

• Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

• Website
• Lists of Charing Cross Hospital Medical School students