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Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was founded in 1739 by the magistrates, the Town Council, the Brethren of the Guild, the Kirk Session, the Trades Convener Court and ?the Principall Inhabitants of the Citie? of Aberdeen. The original idea had been to build a joint Infirmary, Poor-House and Lunatic Asylum but it was decided that the Poor-House should be situated behind the Tolbooth, and the Infirmary (with six ?Bedlam? cells) on the Woolmanhill, ?on account of the goodness of the air there.? The hospital opened in 1742, and in the same year broke away from the Poor-House, becoming a separate establishment. By 1773 the Infirmary was so well established that it obtained its first Charter, becoming Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
Extensive renovation and rebuilding took place from 1818 to 1840. However, less than fifty years later a scheme for the complete re-building of the Hospital was inaugurated by Mr (later Sir) William Henderson, then Lord Provost, as a ?memorial to the Fiftieth Anniversary of Her Majesty?s Reign?. The ?Jubilee Extension Fund? was established in 1887 and plans were adopted providing for the retention of the main building for administrative purposes and the erection of new medical and surgical pavilions, and a block to serve as a laundry and a pathological house. The Surgical Pavilion and the Pathological Block were completed and opened in 1892,and the Medical Pavilion in 1897. From 1908 to 1912, with the aid of £26,758, 6s, 5d. gifted by Lord Mount Stephen (George Stephen, 1829-1921) for that purpose, three new operating theatres and a casualty and out-patients block were built.
Although the number of beds in the Infirmary increased after the First World War to 366, the inadequacy of accommodation in it and in the other voluntary hospitals in Aberdeen had for some time caused concern and led to the Joint Hospitals Scheme being finally adopted in 1920. This scheme was intended to solve the problems of space and efficiency by centralising all the major voluntary hospital services on one spacious site to provide better treatment, better health conditions (fresh air, etc.), better teaching facilities and economy of administration with shared services such as heating, laundry and equipment. In 1923 the Foresterhill site was set aside for the scheme, with the first participating hospital opening there in 1929. Following the successful institution of a building fund, the foundation stone of the new Infirmary was laid on 28 August 1928 and the Hospital was opened in 1936 at a cost of c.£525,000. It consisted of three blocks and a nurses? home and accommodated 500 patients.
Major extensions were carried out in 1966 and 1976. Accident and Emergency moved to Foresterhill from Woolmanhill (where it had been since 1936) in 1978 and the first beds were used in 1979. The Aberdeen Royal Infirmary has had accommodation for 727 in-patients since 1981, and the buildings at Woolmanhill have served a number of purposes as various departments have continued to move to Foresterhill. Currently (2001) the archives of Northern Health Services, as well as the Occupational Therapy training suite, the STD clinic and a centre for osteoporosis research remain at Woolmanhill.
Any large and venerable institution is likely to produce branches and these frequently become entirely separate institutions. The most important offshoot of the Infirmary was the Lunatic Asylum which started as six ?bedlam? cells in the hospital itself. By 1794 the final decision to build a separate institution had been made and the lands of Clerkseat were bought in 1798, the first Aberdeen Lunatic Asylum being opened in 1800. The Managers of the Infirmary and of the Asylum were always joint and the Infirmary records contain considerable information concerning the Asylum (now Royal Cornhill Hospital).
The Aberdeen General Dispensary was established by the Infirmary Managers in 1781 and became a separate body in 1785. By the early nineteenth century there were in fact three dispensaries, but these combined in 1823 to create the Aberdeen General Dispensary, Vaccine and Lying-in Institution. The latter part, the Lying-in Institution, itself evolved, in the early twentieth century, into the Aberdeen Maternity Hospital.
The third offshoot of the Infirmary was the Aberdeen Convalescent Hospital, which was established as an adjunct to the Royal Infirmary in 1871 and only closed in 1964 when its functions as a convalescent hospital were taken over by Glen O?Dee, Banchory.
The Infirmary possessed a large landed property which either the hospital was bequeathed, as in Kinaldie, or had purchased, as in Towie where the ?lands and barony of Kingsford, formerly called Towie Barclay? were jointly purchased by Robert Gordon?s School and the Infirmary in 1793.
In 1948 the Infirmary was absorbed into the National Health Service and the North-Eastern Regional Hospital Board. From 1948 to 1972 it was administered by the Aberdeen General Hospitals Board of Management and from 1972 to 1974 by the Foresterhill and Associated Hospitals Board. Since 1974 it has been part of the South District of the Grampian Health Board.
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