The original hospital was the
Newcastle upon Tyne Infirmary at Forth Banks which was funded by way of public subscription. The foundation stone was laid by
Joseph Butler, the
Bishop of Durham, on 5 September 1751, following the proposals of Richard Lambert. It opened on 8 October 1753. By the end of the 19th century, despite major extensions including the Dobson Wing which opened in 1855 and the Ravensworth Wards which opened in 1885, the infirmary became overcrowded and needed to be replaced. A new hospital to be known as the
Royal Victoria Infirmary was designed by William Lister Newcomb and Percy Adams and built on of
Town Moor given by the Corporation and Freemen of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. It was opened by
King Edward VII on 11 July 1906. a nurses' home, chapel and five operating theatres, cost over £300,000. A statue of
Queen Victoria in front of the new infirmary, sculpted by
Sir George James Frampton in white stone, was the gift of Sir Riley Lord, who was knighted for his efforts in getting the infirmary built. In the 1950s they were painted over but later uncovered. With the opening of a new children's ward in the early 1990s the cost of moving them was £240,000. During hospital expansion in 2004 the tiles were removed for storage and restoration; by 2009 a decision had not been made on their reinstallation. The infirmary became a unit of the First Northern General Hospital and treated wounded service personnel during the
First World War. The Royal Victoria Infirmary had close links with
King's College, Durham and, after it was formed, with
Newcastle University as a major teaching hospital from when the
university medical school was opened by
King George VI in 1939. Overcrowding was a problem, with waiting lists of over 5,000 in the 1930s and, until it joined the
National Health Service in 1948, money had to be raised for extensions and new equipment – always difficult especially in the depression years. Later additions to the hospital included the Dental Hospital and School in 1978 and the Medical School in 1985. These additions were followed by Leazes Wing (facing
Leazes Park) in 1992, the Sir James Spence Institute (named after
Sir James Spence, a leading
paediatrician) in 1994 and the Claremont Wing (on Claremont Road) in 1996. and of maternity services from the
Princess Mary Maternity Hospital in 1993. A major expansion of the site, including the New Victoria Wing, which includes a state-of-the-art accident and emergency department replacing that of the
Newcastle General Hospital, and a new children's facility known as the
Great North Children's Hospital was procured under a
Private Finance Initiative contract in 2005. It was built by
Laing O'Rourke at a cost of £150 million and opened in 2010. == Facilities ==