File:...........Antiseptic Midwifery In This Country (36361551820).jpg

York Road, Waterloo, London. In March 1879, Joseph, afterwards Lord Lister, accepted the office of consulting surgeon and he continued to serve the hospital in this capacity and as President until 1911. In 1880 Sir John Williams and Sir Francis Champneys were appointed Physicians Accoucheurs and under their auspices the hospital was the first to practise antiseptic midwifery in this country.

The General Lying-In Hospital was opened in April 1767 as the Westminster New Lying-in Hospital, on the north side of Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth, then on the outskirts of London. Lying-in is an archaic term for childbirth; the institution was a maternity hospital. Dr. John Leake was its first physician. The hospital admitted single mothers as well as married women.

Early in the 1820s the governors decided to move to new premises. They acquired a building lease of a plot of ground with 100-foot frontage at grid reference TQ308797 on the east side of York Road, Lambeth. The new building was designed by Henry Harrison and cost about £3,000. On 22 September 1828, the minutes record that “On Friday Morning a Patient was delivered of a Son in the New Hospital and the Committee met this day in the new Hospital for the first time.” The name “Westminster” was dropped from the title and the institution was incorporated by royal charter in 1830 as “The General Lying-in Hospital". The General Lying-In closed in 1971 and fell into dereliction. In later years it appeared on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk register. It was restored and refurbished in 2003 at a cost of £4.27 million including a grant from the Guy's and St Thomas' Charity.