Newcastle, Brunswick Place, Eye Hospital

HER Number:
7890

District:
Newcastle

Site Name:
Newcastle, Brunswick Place, Eye Hospital

Place:
Newcastle

Map Sheet:
NZ26SW

Class:
Health and Welfare

Site Type: Broad:
Specialist Hospital

Site Type: Specific:
Eye Hospital

General Period:
Early Modern

Specific Period:
C19

Form of Evidence:
Documentary Evidence

Description:
In 1822 Doctor Fife opened a hospital for diseases of the eye in Brunswick Place. 7000 patients were treated in the first nine years. This was the same Doctor Fife who, in 1829, lectured on anatomy using the body of a "most disgusting and abandoned female", who had been sentenced to death at the Assizes and taken by cart to the gallows on the Town Moor sitting on her own coffin. 20,000 people came to watch the execution, after which her body was exhibited for six hours in the Surgeon's Hall.

Easting:
248

Northing:
645

Grid Reference:
NZ248645

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
P. Winter, D Milne, J Brown, A Rushworth, 1989, Northern Heritage - Newcastle upon Tyne, p 116; Geoffrey Fisher & Rev. Terry Hurst, North East Methodist History Society, 2009, Brunswick Place 1821-1992, Newcastle upon Tyne, page 12