The Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport, Hampshire, which was also known as the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, was one of Britain's leading Royal Naval Hospitals (and latterly a tri-service MOD hospital) for over 250 years. Built in the 1740s, it was reputedly the largest hospital in the world when it opened, and the largest brick-built building in Europe.
In 1998 the closure of the hospital was announced, conditional on the establishment of an MOD Hospital Unit at a nearby civilian hospital. In 2007 the military withdrew; Haslar then continued to function for a short time under civilian management, before closing entirely in 2009. In 2018, the historic buildings began to be converted into retirement flats, and in 2020 the site reopened as Royal Haslar: a 'luxury waterfront residential village'.
A significant number of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian former hospital buildings are being preserved on the site; they are currently (2024) in the process of being converted to a variety of residential, business, retail and leisure uses. The 18th-century quadrangle blocks are Grade II* listed, as is the hospital chapel; while around a dozen other buildings and structures on the site are listed at Grade II. Most of the post-war hospital buildings have now been demolished.
History Background At the start of the 18th century there was little provision for the medical care of naval personnel beyond the presence of surgeons on naval ships. If necessary, on-shore premises could be hired to serve as temporary 'sick quarters', beds might be reserved for naval use in the main London hospitals and civilian surgeons engaged under contract.
The Fifth Commission for Sick, Wounded and Prisoners had lobbied for the establishment of dedicated naval hospitals as early as 1702, but although a number were established overseas no moves were made to build one in Britain. In a twelve-month period in 1739-40, however, nearly 17,000 sick and wounded seamen came ashore in Portsmouth and Plymouth as a result of the War of Jenkins' Ear, and the old systems of treatment and care were unable to cope. In 1741 the Commissioners for Sick and Hurt Seamen again petitioned the Admiralty to build hospitals to meet the pressing need. Eventually the Admiralty concurred that they would indeed be a good investment; and in 1744 an Order in Council was issued for the establishment of Naval Hospitals close to Portsmouth, Plymouth and Chatham.
Construction
The Admiralty selected and acquired the site for the Portsmouth hospital in 1745: Haslar Farm (whose name came from Anglo-Saxon Hæsel-ōra ). The building was designed by Theodore Jacobsen.
Foundations were laid in 1746 and the main front building was completed in 1753. The first hundred patients were admitted on 23 October that year, but the hospital was still unfinished; construction continued until 1762, when the two parallel side wings were finished.
Even then the hospital remained incomplete: the planned fourth side of the quadrangle was never built. Instead a detached chapel, dedicated to St Luke, was constructed at what would have been its centre-point; (within its pediment an original hour-striking clock by Colley of London, dated 1762, continues to do service).
Each wing consisted of a double row of buildings, with wards on three storeys and within the attic spaces (except that the ground floor of the inner buildings formed an arcaded walkway, opening on to the centre ground). The tall centrepiece of the main front, which was aligned with the main entrance, was topped with a sculpted pediment in Portland stone, while an archway below led to the courtyard beyond. The side wings were of a plainer design, with low pavilions at the centre on each side (which were used as store rooms in the early years). The corner blocks initially contained apartments for the officers of the hospital.
Around the hospital were some of 'airing grounds' (where patients could walk and take the air); the site as a whole, of around , was enclosed within high brick walls. Building works cost more than £100,000, nearly double the cost of the Admiralty headquarters in London.Rodger 1986, p. 110 In its early years it was known as the Royal Hospital Haslar.
Operation 18th century
Patients usually arrived by boat, at a jetty directly opposite the main gate (it was not until 1795 that a bridge was built over Haslar Creek, providing a direct link to Gosport; up to this date the hospital employed a ferryman). Built on a peninsula, the hospital's guard towers, high brick walls, and bars and railings throughout the site were all designed to stop patients, many of whom had been press ganged, from going absent without leave.Brown 2016
The hospital had been designed to accommodate 1,500 patients, but as early as 1755 it was reconfigured to make room for up to 1,800. By 1790 overcrowding had become a serious problem, there now being 2,100 patients in the main building, and others accommodated on board hulks in Portsmouth Harbour.
In the mid-18th century the hospital was administered by a 'Physician and Council': the Physician was the hospital's Senior Medical Officer; the Council consisted of two master Surgeons, the Steward and the Agent (who was responsible to the Sick and Hurt Board for assessment of new arrivals, among other duties). Accommodation was provided for the senior medical staff in two pairs of semi-detached houses, standing to either side of the main front.
Dr James Lind (1716–1794), the 'Father of Naval Medicine', served as leading physician at Haslar from 1758 till 1785. In trials of 1747, described in his 'A Treatise of the Scurvy' of 1753, he had played a major part in discovering a cure for scurvy, not least through his pioneering use of a double blind methodology with Vitamin C supplements (oranges and lemons).
In 1794, in order to improve discipline within the hospital, its management was taken out of the hands of the clinicians and vested in serving naval officers. They were housed in a grand terrace of nine new residences, built at the south-west end of the site (beyond the chapel), facing the main quadrangle, the Governor (the officer in charge) being housed in the large residence in the centre of the terrace. At the same time high railings were installed across the fourth (open) side of the quadrangle to prevent desertions, and the ground floor windows of the wards were barred.
Robert Dods, who was Surgeon at Haslar in the 1790s, set up a separate operating room in the Royal Hospital Haslar (which was the first in any naval hospital). Prior to this innovation, surgery had been performed on the wards in front of the other patients.
The hospital treated foreign nationals as well as British service personnel. There are records of Portuguese sailors suffering from typhus being treated in the hospital in the 1790s, as well as French prisoners of war (who were being held on prison hulks nearby).
By the end of the century the senior staff at Haslar are listed as a Governor and three Lieutenants, three Physicians, three Surgeons, the Agent, the Steward, a Dispenser and a Chaplain. Women were employed as nurses, and there was also a support staff of labourers, cooks and other workers.
19th century In 1805 the medical staff of the naval hospitals became somewhat more integrated into Royal Navy as a whole: they were given a uniform and relative rank, and clearer conditions of appointment. Notable physicians associated with Haslar in the 19th century included Sir John Richardson, Thomas Henry Huxley and William Balfour Baikie, while Sir Edward Parry served as captain-superintendent for a time in the 1840s-50s.
Although it was a naval hospital, Haslar also treated large numbers of wounded soldiers, particularly between 1803 and 1815 (during the Napoleonic Wars) and during the Crimean War in the 1850s. During such times Army medical personnel were drafted in to work alongside their naval counterparts.
In 1818 the southernmost block of the main hospital was set aside for the treatment of officers and seamen with psychiatric disorders. Haslar Naval Lunatic Asylum was at the time the only such institution for naval personnel in the UK (apart from some provision at Greenwich Hospital); previously, affected personnel had been sent to Hoxton House. An early superintending psychiatrist (from 1830-38) was the phrenologist, Dr James Scott (1785–1859), a member of the influential Edinburgh Phrenological Society. Under the supervision of Dr James Anderson (who was at Haslar from 1842 until his death in 1853) Haslar Asylum became known for its pioneering humane approach in treating mental illness: he abolished chains and restraints, removed the iron bars from the windows and reformed the practices of the attendants. Under him, patients were given use of the hospital grounds; they partook of music and dancing, and were also regularly taken on boating trips in Portsmouth Harbour. To give them a view of the Solent, which lay beyond the high walls of the airing ground adjacent to the Asylum, Anderson created two grass-covered mounds topped by summer houses (one of which still survives). In 1863 the Naval Asylum was removed from Haslar to the Royal Naval Hospital in Great Yarmouth.
In the 1820s a library was established at Haslar and a museum of specimens from around the world, both created at the instigation of Sir William Burnett, which the Admiralty continued to add to over the years. The Librarian was also required to offer a course of lectures twice a year. Dr James Scott was the first 'Librarian, Lecturer and Curator of the Museum'; appointed in 1827, he continued in this role alongside his work at the Asylum. Sir John Richardson succeeded him in 1838; under his curation the museum was regarded as a scientific institution of national importance, but following his resignation in 1855 much of the collection was dispersed (with several items going to Kew Gardens and the British Museum). The museum was gradually restocked, but later destroyed by bombing in the Second World War. (The Library, however, survived; it has since been amalgamated into the collections of the Institute of Naval Medicine.)
In the 18th and early 19th century deceased patients were buried (usually in unmarked graves) over a wide area at the south-west end of the site (later known as the Paddock). In 1826 part of it (to the north-west of the Terrace) was enclosed behind walls and consecrated as a burial ground. Burials therein ceased in 1859 when a new naval cemetery was opened a quarter of a mile away at Clayhall.
In 1840 the title of Physician was abolished in the Royal Navy. That same year, the title of the senior officer of the hospital changed (having already changed from 'Governor' to 'Resident Commissioner' in 1820): it now became 'Captain-superintendent'. By the early 1850s the staff consisted of: The Captain Superintendent Two Lieutenants Two Medical Inspectors (Richardson and Anderson) One Deputy Medical Inspector The Agent & Steward (now a combined role) A 'Surgeon and Medical Storekeeper' One Assisting and eight Assistant Surgeons One Chaplain Four Clerks
To provide fresh water for the hospital a well had been sunk in the 18th century (on what later became the site of an adjacent naval facility: Haslar Gunboat Yard). The water was raised by horse engine until 1855, when a steam engine was installed. Four years later a second well was sunk, to a depth of . As well as driving the pumps for the wells, the engine provided water, steam and motive power for a new hospital laundry, which was built within the hospital grounds directly opposite the engine house (and connected to it via a tunnel under Haslar Road). The water pumped from the wells was stored in a water tower (which was rebuilt in the 1880s), while hot water from the engine was sent to a separate tank on the roof of the laundry.