Description:This print is by L. Tallis of London. The hospital was founded in 1847 on Bath Row becoming Birmingham Accident Hospital in 1941 and closing in 1993. The building frontage was listed and incorporated into new accommodation for University Students. John Henry Lloyd, writing in 1911, had this to say about the hospital:
"This great Hospital is the second general Hospital in Birmingham. It was founded in the year 1840 in connexion with the Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery; a school which in 1843 became incorporated under the name of the "Queen's College".
It has a large acting medical and surgical staff, consisting of three physicians, three surgeons, two physicians for out patients, three surgeons for out patients, an ophthalmic surgeon and an obstetric officer.
To William Sands Cox is due the merit of establishing the Queens Hospital. He was a remarkable man. Born in Birmingham in 1802, educated at King Edward's School, articled to his Father (a Birmingham Surgeon), he began to study at the General Hospital and continued his studies at Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals in London and Paris. He returned to Birmingham in 1825, and giving up all thought of acquiring a large general practice resolved to start a School of Anatomy of his own. Sands Cox soon began his first course of "Lectures on Anatomy with Physiology and Surgical Observations" at his residence in Temple Row to a class of nineteen pupils, including Oliver Pemberton, Dickenson Crompton and Bell Fletcher.
He then formed plans for extending his scheme to the formation of a regular School of Medicine, and in 1828 it was decided to form a School of Medicine and Surgery in Birmingham on the plan of similar institutions at Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and other large Towns. It was stated that the hospital and other medical and surgical institutions of Birmingham possessed advantages of clinical instruction scarcely inferior, out of the Metropolis, to any in the Kingdom.
The School was transferred to Snow Hill by Sands Cox at his own expense, and was removed to Paradise Street in 1833 - the beginning of what afterwards became Queen's College.
In 1838 Sands Cox succeeded in interesting the Rev. Dr. Warneford, Rector of Bourton-on-the-Water, who contributed no less than £27,150 in fourteen years.
The promoters desired a clinical institution in which they might individually take some part, and over which they could exercise more or less control.
An appeal for a clinical hospital was forthwith made which was responded to by munificent donations from the Dowager Queen Adelaide downwards, and in June 1840 the foundation stone of the Queen's Hospital was laid by Earl Howe. It was opened in 1841 with seventy beds, and soon afterwards the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Victoria was obtained, with permission to adopt the title of "The Queen's Hospital"; which Queen Alexandra has continued. H.R.H. Prince Albert also accepted the position of President of the Hospital.
In 1880 Mason College was opened as a Science College. Later the classes of Physiology, Chemistry and Botany were transferred to Mason College, and eventually in 1892 the Medical Faculty of Queen's College became the Queen's Faculty of Medicine in Mason College. It is now part of the University of Birmingham.
Queen's Hospital was soon enlarged; by 1845 detached wards for the reception of infectious and contagious cases were added, accommodation for twenty-eight additional beds being provided.
In 1847, by a penny subscription, a sum of £905 1s 3d was collected and handed over as a free contribution to the Queen's Hospital. This collection gave the idea from which the Hospital Saturday Fund was eventually evolved.
In 1867 the adjacent St Martin's Rectory grounds were purchased and a Working Men's extension Fund for the Queen's Hospital was begun, in order to provide a new out patient department.
Originally, admission was by subscriber's ticket, but in 1875 the Queen's became a free hospital, the Governors giving up the right to nominate patients. A small registration fee of one shilling is charged, but is remitted in a large number of cases.
Lord Leigh laid the foundation stone in 1871 when a hymn was specially written by the Rev. Charles Kingsley and sung by a thousand children from the "Birmingham Schools Choral Union".
Various improvements and additions were made from time to time and in 1908 an entirely new block was opened with wards on three stories as well as a roof ward for six patients, the first of its kind in Europe. The accommodation of the Nursing Home was increased from thirth four to seventy four and the hospital beds are now 178, viz. sixty for medical and 118 for surgical, including the Obstetric and Ophthalmic Departments. In 1877 there were 16,117 patients and in 1908 39,483 patients, viz. 2,685 in patients and 36,708 out patients".