The growth of Ä¢¹½tvÊÓƵ in the early 19th century brought a huge increase in an underclass of destitute figures who existed in appalling conditions on the margins of society.
This troubled many local worthies, and in the 1840s the area of Burmantofts – then in open countryside – was selected to be home to the city’s workhouse.
A network of buildings sprung up, starting with the Moral and Industrial Training School in 1848 (now part of Lincoln Wing) followed in close order by the Workhouse and Chapel, and in 1874 the Poor Law Infirmary, which looked after inmates too ill or feeble to work. This building was renamed St James’s Hospital in 1925, and over time the stigma of its original purpose faded from memory.
By the early 1970s St James’s had transformed itself into a University Hospital on a par with its rival across the city. During that decade the site was transformed with three new wings which saw it vastly expanded in size to become reputedly the largest teaching hospital in Europe.
The confident new St James’s is personified by the Bexley Wing, a state-of-the-art cancer centre which replaced the Victorian-era Cookridge Hospital and opened in 2008.