Our history
Guy's and St Thomas' are amongst the oldest hospitals in the world, having endured the Black Death, the plague, the War of the Roses, the Great Fire of London and the Blitz.
Long before they were brought together as a single NHS Hospital Trust in April 1993, the two hospitals had shared centuries of working together.
The brutal beginnings
The history of our hospitals began in 1170 with an assassination. Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury was slaughtered by the King's knights in his own cathedral after a fall out with Henry II. After his murder he was made a martyr and monks at a Southwark infirmary renamed their hospital in his memory. St Thomas' was born.
St Thomas'
The first St Thomas' was a charitable hospital with only 40 beds. The original site was known as St Mary's Overie, and it existed decades before 1170. The original site is where Southwark Cathedral, near today's Guy's Hospital, now stands. It was run by Augustinian monks.
In the 16th century King Henry VIII closed down all monastic institutions, including St Thomas', and took their wealth. He planned to refound St Thomas' due to the number of sick and dying on the streets of London, but he died before he signed the Bill. His son Edward reopened it in 1555 on the condition that it no longer took its name from the Catholic saint St Thomas Becket and instead honoured St Thomas the Apostle.
As London grew, so did the hospital. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, the streets around the hospital were breeding grounds for disease and many children died before the age of two.
By the late 18th century the powerful railway companies won the right to build London Bridge station on part of the hospital's site. Eventually, and after temporarily relocating its patients to an old zoo in Kennington, St Thomas' was rebuilt to its present location opposite the Houses of Parliament. This move coincided with Florence Nighingale's return from the Crimean war, who influenced the design of St Thomas' by ensuring that the ward environment had high ceilings and was big and airy in order to help patients feel better.
Guy's
Thomas Guy was a very wealthy governor and benefactor of St Thomas'. He leased some neighbouring land to build one of the world's first institutions for the care of the 'incurably ill and hopelessly insane'. Sadly Thomas Guy died a month before Guy's Hospital opened in 1725. He is buried in the crypt underneath Guy's Chapel. Before his death he gave the hospital his entire fortune. This generous gift was so big that it allowed the hospital to run for nearly two centuries until the NHS came into existence in 1948.
As Guy's expanded from its original 60 beds into a major hospital, it retained close links with St Thomas', particularly through the joint medical school that the hospitals shared.
The schools separated in 1825 and were reunited as the United Medical and Dental Schools in 1982. Guy's remains on its original site at London Bridge.
Surviving World War II
Westminster was a prime target for enemy bombers during World War II and the bridge end of St Thomas' was badly damaged. The old court room at Guy's was destroyed.
Although ten members of staff died during the bombing, not one single patient was killed. Such was the determination of the staff to treat people locally, A&E never closed.
The names of the staff members who died during the War are recorded in the Chapel at St Thomas'.
The birth of the NHS
Three years after the end of the war, the NHS was created. Guy's and St Thomas' saw their biggest changes for more than 200 years when they were brought under public control for the first time in their history. From now on they were publically accountable.
Two became one
For years the two great hospitals were fierce rivals, one claiming superiority over the other. Over time, they began to work more closely together and in the early 1990s a Government review recommended that the hospitals merge. In 1993 Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust was created and in 2004 we became one of the UK's first NHS Foundation Trusts.
Charitable roots
When the NHS was created, two separate organisations called the Special Trustees managed the donations for the two hospitals. When they merged in 1993, the two charitable funds came together to form Guy's and St Thomas Charitable Foundation. It became known as Guy's and St Thomas' Charity in 2005 when we received Foundation Trust status.
To find out more about the Charity's work or how you can make a donation visit www.gsttcharity.org.uk
The spirit of giving continues today, with many patients and their families as well as the wider community and individuals continuing to raise funds, make donations or leaving legacies to support the hospitals.