Bruntsfield Hospital

Plaque and tablet on the hospital building

Sophia Jex-Blake memorial plaque in St Giles' Cathedral

The hospital had its origins in public dispensary opened by Sophia Jex-Blake at 73 Grove Street in September 1878.[1] It moved to 6 Grove Street, a building large enough to provide in-patient services, as the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children in 1885.[1]

When Jex-Blake retired and moved away in 1899, the trustees acquired her house, Bruntsfield Lodge, and fitted it out as an 18-bed women's hospital.[1][2] The hospital committee was led by well-connected women active in various social reform projects such as Flora Stevenson.[3]

In 1910 the hospital merged with "The Hospice", a small maternity home which had been established by Elsie Inglis and the Medical Women's Club at 11 George Square some eleven years previously.[2] A new ward block, designed by Arthur Forman Balfour Paul, was officially opened by Queen Mary in July 1911.[2] The hospital was joined the National Health Service in 1948 and closed in 1989.[2] The building was then converted for residential use and is now known as Greenhill Court.[4]

• History of Bruntsfield Hospital (Lothian Health Services Archive)
• Bruntsfield Hospital and Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital (Lothian Health Services Archive)
• Three Scottish Women's Hospitals from their foundations to 1948 - Lecture given by Margaret Menzies Campbell (Archived at University of Dundee. Also available from Mitchell Library, Glasgow)