Bootle used to have 2 hospitals, the Royal Borough, and in Linacre Lane, the Fever Hospital. The Royal Borough, first opened 1872, was designed to treat 26 patients and of course it soon had to be extended. The hospital had to pay over £8500 for a new wing, equal to hundreds of thousands today! The whole building was demolished and rebuilt in 1913. King Edward VII had recently died and people decided to build a brand-new hospital as a memorial. Most of the patients were soldiers from the battlefields during the First World War. Soldiers didn't just have gunshot wounds, other injuries came from being sprayed by bomb shrapnel or being poisoned by gas. As well as soldiers, many workers from docks and factories were treated. The Victorians didn't care much about health and safety with many companies wanting to make as much money as possible. Putting in safety features would have cost a lot which led unfortunately to people suffering from accidents, disease and illness.
The second hospital, the Fever Hospital, its full title being the Bootle Corporation Infectious Diseases Hospital, opened in 1886, and was designed specifically for those with contagious diseases, mainly to isolate patients infected with cholera and diptheria, a highly contagious disease, Prior to the 1940s outbreaks of diptheria were a common occurrence, brought on by poor living conditions and overcrowding mainly affecting children and the elderly, until a vaccine was introduced. Those patients that were fit to travel were transferred from the Royal Borough hospital to the Fever Hospital by ambulances, one of which was supplied by Bootle Fire Brigade. Enlarged in 1903 and costing £14.491 to build, there were 105 beds, and for the convenience of patients there were two well equipped Ambulances. The Corporation considered the advisability of increasing the number of Scarlet fever beds, of which there were later fifty-three. Unlike the fancy Borough building, most of the site consisted of wooden huts,which were easier to clean.
During WW2, because of Bootle General Hospitals proximity to the docks, industry was subjected to bombing raids. The Isolation Hospital took on the role of a general hospital, with many temporary buildings added and this arrangement continued until around 1949. When the hospital moved back to the Bootle site, it became redundant as an Isolation Hospital, When closed, two thirds of the Fever Hospital was demolished and what was left was used by Bootle corporation as a Housing Office, the HQ of Sefton Councils Security Services with the annex at one time converted into St Monica's Senior Boys and Gray St Senior Boys.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2025/05/liverpool-hospitals-st-pauls-eye.html
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