Origins (1899–1913) The school was founded on October 2, 1899, by Sir
Patrick Manson as the
London School of Tropical Medicine after the Parsi philanthropist
Bomanjee Dinshaw Petit made a donation of £6,666 ($1,368,844 USD in 2024). Just prior to this teaching in tropical medicine had been commenced in 1899 at the
Extramural school at Edinburgh and even earlier at London's
Livingstone College founded in 1893. Before giving lectures at
St George's Hospital, London, in 1895, Livingstone College afforded Manson his first opportunity to teach courses in tropical medicine. Manson's early career was as a physician in the Far East. On his return to London, he was appointed Medical Advisor to the
Colonial Office. He strongly believed that physicians should be trained in tropical medicine to treat British colonial administrators and others working throughout Britain's tropical
empire. He also encouraged and mentored
Ronald Ross during this period to uncover the correct etiology of
malaria, which Ross subsequently discovered in 1897, winning the
Nobel Prize for his efforts. The original school was established as part of the
Seamen's Hospital Society. In 1902, the benefactor Petit wrote the following about the institution in a letter to Sir Francis Lovell (Dean of the school), quoted in
The Times of London. Among the school's early achievements were discoveries by
George Carmichael Low, who proved
filariasis is spread by mosquito bites, and
Aldo Castellani, who discovered
trypanosomes in the cerebral fluid of those affected by
sleeping sickness. Experiments were also conducted by the school's faculty which provided proof that mosquitoes act as the
vector in the spread of
malaria.
World Wars (1914–1945) During
World War I, many of the faculty were
conscripted into the army where they often continued to treat or research
tropical diseases with the aim of protecting the health of the troops fighting in the
Middle Eastern and
African campaigns. Meanwhile, enough faculty remained at the school to continue its operations, although enrollment drastically fell during the war. The remaining faculty contributed to the war effort nonetheless by becoming increasingly involved in treating soldiers with
dysentery,
malaria, and other
tropical diseases after their return from overseas. On the night of January 19, 1917, a
TNT explosion from a nearby munition depot damaged the school and hospital, further complicating the school's operations. The school's wartime contributions were acknowledged on October 10, 1917, by a surprise visit from King
George V and in 1918 by a visit from
Queen Mary,
Prince Edward, and
Princess Mary. Consequently, the school moved, together with the
Hospital for Tropical Diseases, to
Endsleigh Gardens in central London, taking over a former hotel which had been used as a hospital for officers during the First World War. The building was officially opened by
George VI, then
Duke of York, on 11 November 1920.
Post-war period (1946–1960) The healthcare environment changed in the wake of the war, both nationally and internationally, with the establishment of the
National Health Service and the
World Health Organization. The
Chief Medical Officer and former Dean of LSHTM,
Sir Wilson Jameson, played a critical role in the establishment of both. LSHTM served a crucial role in reshaping scientific research and public health in the post-war period.
Sir Austin Bradford Hill, a professor of Medical Statistics at the school, was the statistician on the
Medical Research Council Streptomycin in Tuberculosis Trials Committee and their 1948 study evaluating the use of
streptomycin in treating
tuberculosis, which is generally accepted as the first
randomized controlled trial to have been conducted. Two years later Bradford Hill and Sir
Richard Doll, a member of the MRC Statistical Research Unit based at LSHTM, were the first to demonstrate the association between
cigarette smoking and
lung cancer. They also set up the well-known
British Doctors Study to provide evidence for a
causal relationship. In 1951, alumnus
Max Theiler was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discoveries concerning
yellow fever and how to combat it".
George Macdonald, professor of tropical hygiene and director of the Ross Institute at LSHTM, was the first to propose the
basic reproduction number (R_0) in his 1952 study of
malaria, which remains a key statistic in the study of infectious diseases to this day. The following year, alumnus
Jerry Morris was the first to establish the role of
physical exercise in preventing
heart disease. Richard Doll established the connection between
asbestos and
lung cancer in 1955, while two
Readers at the school established the connection between
air pollution and
respiratory diseases in 1958. Tavistock Place was further expanded in 2017 with an additional research facility. Moreover, the
MRC Unit The Gambia and the
MRC Uganda Research Unit officially joined the university in 2018. These transfers were part of the MRC's long-term programme of transferring units into a host university in order to bring strategic benefits to both parties. In 2026,
King Charles III became
patron of LSHTM, a role previously held by
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, from 1952 until his death in 2021.
Response to the 2014 Ebola epidemic When the
World Health Organization declared that the
Western African Ebola virus epidemic was a public health emergency of international concern in August 2014, LSHTM coordinated various response efforts. More than 500 academic and professional services staff volunteered to respond, with many volunteers deployed via
Save the Children,
Public Health England,
Médecins Sans Frontières and the WHO. LSHTM continued to pay the salary of anyone who volunteered to work on Ebola care and control in
Guinea,
Liberia and
Sierra Leone, or backfill posts in WHO offices. Staff and students carried out mathematical modelling and other research to support Ebola response planning. Experts, including LSHTM faculty, established an Ebola Response Anthropology Platform to help health workers develop culturally sensitive interventions and developed free online education programmes to combat the spread of the disease. Researchers, including researchers from LSHTM, carried out accelerated clinical trials in the field, including the EBOVAC Ebola vaccine trials which is still ongoing. LSHTM was part of an independent panel advising on major reforms targeted at prevention of future global outbreaks and now runs the
UK Public Health Rapid Support Team in partnership with Public Health England, funded by the UK Government. Former LSHTM Director
Peter Piot was named among 'the Ebola fighters' as
Time Person of the Year and LSHTM itself also won various awards for its response. ==Campus==