Hospitals, Health & Heritage with Dr Hilary Wilson and Dr Kate Stevens (Friends of Glasgow Royal Infirmary)

In our first ever live podcast recording we’re joined by Dr Hilary Wilson and Dr Kate Stevens from Friends of Glasgow Royal Infirmary to hear about the history of the development of Glasgow Royal Infirmary, the many pioneering healthcare providers that worked at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and their experiences setting up the recently opened museum in the Royal Infirmary.

This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience in the museum at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on 24th August 2022.

Keep an eye on our website glasgowheritage.org.uk, join us on social media @GlasgowHeritage and follow #IfGlasgowsWallsCouldTalk

This podcast was produced by Inner Ear for Glasgow City Heritage Trust. It is kindly sponsored by the National Trust for Scotland and supported by Tunnock’s.

Creators & Guests

Producer

Anny Deery

TV Producer. Retrained Massage Therapist @glasgowholistic. Live in Glasgow. Mother of a 8 yo + three year old.

Editor

Katharine Neil

What is If Glasgow’s Walls Could Talk?

A podcast by Glasgow City Heritage Trust which focuses on the relationships, stories and shared memories that exist between Glasgow’s historic buildings and the city's communities. Presented by Glasgow City Heritage Trust’s Director Niall Murphy, this series features guests discussing with Niall a specific area, type of building or aspect of Glasgow’s heritage, not only from a historical and architectural point of view, but also from the perspective of the community; drawing on the guests’ personal experiences, thoughts, knowledge and memories.

Niall Murphy:
Well, good evening everyone, and thank you very much for joining us. My name is Niall Murphy, and I am delighted to welcome all of you to this very special live edition of If Glasgow Walls Could Talk. It's the first time we've done a live podcast recording like this, so please bear with us, because normally, we do this in the comfort of our own homes via a Zoom-like interface, so actually, doing it live is obviously very different. But we will give it a go and see how it works.
So, right. To talk about where we are at the moment, this is a new museum which was opened in May by the Friends of Glasgow Royal Infirmary. And what we are doing here, obviously now, is to launch this new series of podcasts with Glasgow City Heritage Trust. And as part of this is obviously a new experience for us, and it's also good to be in what appears to be this new space and is looking very swish, this new space. But obviously as we were discussing when I arrived here, this was the original main entrance into the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
So it's fascinating to see this kind of reopened up again, because this had been subdivided up to store spaces for the building. So it's great that this space by this great Glasgow architect, James Miller, has been liberated once more and been put to this fantastic new use. So it really is a great setting for our first podcast, which aims to explore the stories and relationships between historic buildings and people in Glasgow.
And so what we want to talk about in this particular one is if these walls in this new museum and this magnificent and important hospital within the city, and in Scotland, what would they say if these walls could talk? So this welcome museum space celebrates this extraordinary history of Glasgow's oldest hospital in this great East End location within the city centre. It's much loved across the city, and it has a reputation that is genuinely global for the innovations in medicine that have come from it.
It's also, when you consider its context within the city as well, and when you approach it up Castle Street, which is what I normally do, and you see the sheer scale of it and how impressive it is as a set piece within the city, it really is quite something, particularly when you can compare it in its setting in the Cathedral Precinct, next to Glasgow Cathedral. And there's obviously all these great connections with both the Cathedral and with Glasgow Necropolis as well. And there are these connections between all three great institutions within the city.
So the original hospital building on this site, and this site was originally the bishop's palace, this fortified castle. So everyone kind of wonders where Glasgow's equivalent of Edinburgh Castle was. Well, we're roughly sitting in it just now. So this was the original site of what was here. But the original hospital building, which was first started to be planned in about 1791 and opened in 1794, was built on this site by the great Scottish architect, Robert Adam, and executed, because he had died in 1792, by his brother, James Adam, who came out of retirement to finish this building.
So it was here to meet the needs of what was a really rapidly growing city at that point. And the growth of Glasgow has obviously been a major issue in the city, particularly over the course of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. And the hospital has obviously had to keep expanding to keep up with those needs and to adapt to the industrialization and the swelling growth of the city and the constant pressures, particularly in this area, of poor and unsanitary working and living conditions in both the houses and the surrounding factories, because Glasgow was such a dense city.
So for more than 200 years, the Glasgow Royal Infirmary has risen to these challenges of industry, epidemics, poverty, war, and pandemic. And in that time, there had been many medical discoveries with a global impact which have been made here. And the walls of this museum, if you look around you, bear witness to both the remarkable women and men whose innovations, dedications, and discoveries help change the course of medical history, both in Glasgow, Scotland, and further afield in the world.
So you have men like Joseph Lister, who is incredibly important. So you can see his portrait over there, which interestingly enough, and I appreciated that when I walked up to it earlier, is by the great American illustrator and artist Norman Rockwell. And that was a tribute to him on the centenary of his discovery, so right at the top of Rockwell's career. So it's fascinating to see something like that. And he, of course, Joseph Lister, was this great pioneer of antiseptic surgery, and revolutionised his craft while working here at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
And what he was doing was taking... He was inspired by Louis Pasteur, and so he was taking those ideas... And this is one of these great Glasgow things. You see it through various people in Glasgow. They take ideas from elsewhere, they adapt them, and then they revolutionise them. And Lister had the same mould. What he does is by washing and dressing surgical wounds with carbolic acid, he thereby introduces this new concept of cleanliness in surgery, and thereby saves thousands, countless lives across the world. And it's the basis for modern infection control.
So then you've got other people like Rebecca Strong, who was the Glasgow Royal Infirmary's first Matron, and who trained under Florence Nightingale, so incredibly important and is important for establishing the whole idea of how you train nurses. And all of that was done here. And there's a great interview with her on her centenary in the Glasgow Herald and she describes herself as a troublesome woman. Because when she got her teeth into a problem, she kept going with it and looking for the next solution beyond here.
So she's extremely interesting too. And she was important for both the training nursing, and also because of the fact that she insisted on the building of a separate nursing wing as part of the hospital. Because prior to that, the nurses would just have to have sleep in amongst the patients. So again, that's absolutely key in the development of nursing. And other things, the more that we understand about how much these walls could tell us, it's all of these other uplifting stories from our disturbing times, reminding us of human enterprise and ingenuity and what that can achieve.
And so, to help peel back some of these layers of history and tell the story of this great hospital, it is a privilege and a pleasure to introduce our two speakers this evening, Dr. Hilary Wilson, who is a consultant rheumatologist, so you're dealing with joints, nerve conditions, and Dr. Kate Stevens, who is a consultant nephrologist, I pronounced that correctly, good, which is specialising in kidney diseases, both of whom work at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and are trustees of the Friends of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, a charity which was established in May, 2020, so during the first lockdown.
So just two years later, they opened the Friends of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary Museum, who officially launched on the 31st of May, 2022. So you can almost smell the paint, obviously. So the space that we are in celebrates the contribution that the Glasgow Royal Infirmary has made to medicine, surgery, and nursing throughout the world. So there's going to be a great deal to talk about as we work our way through the podcast.
And we also want to give you, the audience, a chance to ask questions too, which we will do at the end of the programme. And hopefully we'll learn a little more about the inspiration for the museum itself. So first off, question number one, the charity was established early in the pandemic, and work on the museum began in earnest during lockdown. So how did that come about, and would you like to tell us how and why you both became involved in this?

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
Well, I'll take this question first, Kate. So the Royal Infirmary is an institution that's been around for 228 years, so of course it's got an enormous history behind it. And when Kate and I walk around the hospital, there are numerous dedications to the people that have walked these corridors before us. There's the brass plaques in the central block entrance for Lister, Macewen, Strong, and MacIntire. We have buildings named after pioneers in the hospital.
And if you look a little more closely in the hospital, there's some more unusual items to reflect a bygone era. So in our sub-basement, we still have the original hooks for the horses. There's the old oxygen tanks in the basement. And if you venture up, and some of my juniors have been up to the seventh floor, there's the old consultant dining room, where consultants were served wine and beer with their lunch and dinner, with tablecloths and silverware. That doesn't happen anymore. So basically, there's an amazing history associated with this building.
So about seven or eight years ago, John Stewart, who's a former chief nurse at the Royal, and one of our trustees, he came up with the concept of Friends of Glasgow Royal Infirmary, because he felt it was important that we should share this history with the rest of the world. And Morven, myself, and Kate joined in with the campaign to try and bring Friends of Glasgow Infirmary to the fore.
And initially when we talked about the museum, people thought we were a bit mad trying to open a museum in a working hospital. And people gave us great support and encouragement, but it was really hard to get it off the ground for the first few years. And then in 2020, we thought, "Well, let's register Friends of GRI as a charity with the regulators," because as a charity you can get funding from other resources that weren't available without being a charitable status. So that was what we did first of all. And then we embraced social media. Kate is our chief Twitter and Instagram feeder. I think she's tweeted as many tweets as we have followers, about 2,800. So that really catapulted us into people wanting to know what we were about.
And because of COVID restrictions in 2020, we couldn't really have in-house, face to face celebrations of our former staff, so we ran some virtual events in the form of webinars, and a virtual tour, and a webinar celebrating Lister and the various women that worked at the Royal. And we were overwhelmed with the support and interest that we had at that stage.
We then got some funding from the Scottish Society History of Medicine, Friends of Glasgow Museums, and the endowment fund in the hospital very kindly gave us the funds to refurbish this space. So what we're in just now, what you've said is this original medical block entrance, but it then moved over to the centre block entrance, and this room really became a storage area for medical records. And it was really in a very poor state of repair when we found it. And it's just lovely to be in it now with people who are interested in the history of the hospital. And as you say, we opened on the 31st of May, 2022.

Niall Murphy:
Yeah, fantastic. I mean, it's great because you have such a wonderful view of the Cathedral Precinct from here, so it's so funny to think that this would just have been a storage room. Yeah. Particularly when there's a statue of Queen Victoria right bang over your entrance. It does seem kind of a bit of a wasted opportunity. Okay. So tell us about the hospital itself, and how did it grow, and what does a historic hospital say about life in the city? Glasgow Royal Infirmary is a landmark with physical and symbolic significance within Glasgow. And maybe we can explore some of those key developments in 1794 and how they relate to what was happening in the rest of the city. Do you want to talk about that?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yes, sure. With the caveat that I'm not a historian, I'll do my best. So yeah, I mean, you've touched on some things already. So in the 18th century, Glasgow as a city grew rapidly, and there was an urgent need to build an infirmary or a hospital to accommodate the expanding population. There was also a desire to have a hospital beside the university. And at that stage, the university was beside the cathedral. So a group got together, so men, as was traditional in those days, no women, so they were the founders, and they planned this new infirmary.
So it was funded by subscribers. So subscribers could be wealthy city merchants, or businesses, or the Royal College of Physicians, and surgeons in Glasgow. And the first meeting was in 1787. So at that point, they didn't actually ask Robert Adam to design the building initially. They asked a man called William Blackburn. So William Blackburn was a famous architect who designed prisons. And he fortunately or unfortunately died and so was unable to design our hospital. I'm not sure what it would've looked like if a prison architect had designed it.
So Robert Adam was brought in, and he designed this, or his designs were very grand, they were very ambitious for the Royal Infirmary. And it's said that there was a degree of one-upmanship, because the other Scottish infirmaries in Aberdeen, Dumfries, and Edinburgh were nothing as grand Robert Adam's designs were here. So the old Glasgow-Edinburgh rivalry was true even back then. So the first designs were deemed to be a little bit too impressive, and modifications were necessary. They were too expensive. But despite that, the finished article was really magnificent.
So exactly as you've heard already, this is where the Adams building was, and it had this wonderful entrance bay looking out onto Cathedral Precinct. And the piece de resistance was the dome on the top of it. So it had this huge dome, and it was 40 foot from the floor to the ceiling in the dome. And housed under the dome was the operating theatre. So you had lots and lots of light coming in through this dome onto the operating table, which was great for the surgeon who was doing the operation, but maybe less so for the patient who, as you'll hear as we move on, was usually awake. There was no anaesthetic. So they were lying there, full daylight. I'm not sure it was great that they could see everything that was going on.
And the other thing about the dome is that, so it was at the top of the hospital, the operating theatre, and Monday to Saturday, it was a functioning theatre. Patients were carried on these gurneys up the stairs, screaming often, no pain relief. Presumably part of the reason it was on the top floor was because maybe the rest of the hospital couldn't hear if they were at the top. And then on Sundays, it became a chapel. So it went from being a horror house to a serene chapel on Sundays. So the other big point of excellence that's often commented on is the fact that there was iron bedsteads in the new Glasgow Royal Infirmary, but there was only wooden ones in Edinburgh, so that was a marker of pride.
So the hospital, as you say, opened in 1794. There were eight wards with 12 beds. There's never enough beds. The same is true today. Half the wards were unfurnished when it opened up initially, so there's a lack of funds, a lack of beds, a theme that I'm afraid is fairly consistent even now. So gradually, over the years, lots of different wings were added to the hospital. So in 1829, they added a detached block, which was the fever hospital. So dealing with outbreaks of infectious diseases in a very overcrowded city was a massive problem for the managers. It's hugely challenging.
And they had these great plans to design this separate fever hospital. But there was lots of hiccups. There wasn't money. And so, a little bit like what happens in today's world, there was temporary accommodation put up to deal with epidemics. At one point, there was a shed in the grounds of the hospital. But eventually, although they had to scale back their original plans, they planned 220 beds, but eventually got 120, they managed to get this fever hospital up. So it sat detached from the rest of the hospital, but in the hospital grounds. And actually it wasn't big enough, and during subsequent epidemics, they had to put more temporary accommodation up in the grounds.
So in 1842, they managed to attach it to the main hospital. And then in 1861, they opened this new surgical hospital. So it was all singing and dancing. It had these coal fires, it had a day ward for patients to convalesce in, and it had this huge operating theatre, again on the top floor. And in the operating theatre, they had a tiered sitting area, where more than 200 people could watch operations. That was for education, for sport in those days. So that's where Joseph Lister made his groundbreaking discoveries in 1865. And whilst Lister was working exhaustively on his theories of antisepsis in London, Florence Nightingale had embarked upon her great mission to open up or establish a training school for nurses.
So it's kind of important to understand that nursing was not a profession in the early 1800s. It was basically... It was a means of employment for people who were also-rans, prostitutes, fallen women. It was not viewed in any favourable light whatsoever, alcoholics, basically people who couldn't get a job anywhere else. And society was incredibly judgmental. And it wasn't cool to look after sick people as a woman, particularly. A few sick people were men. The night nurses were the worst. So they basically used to come in, steal from the patients, drink themselves into a stupor, and have to be carried out the back door in the morning.
So in 1860, Florence Nightingale opened up the Nightingale Training School for Nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital in London. And she was a middle class, respectable woman, so she gave nursing a bit more respectability. And then in 1867, so just after Lister had made his discoveries, Mrs. Rebecca Strong enrolled in the Florence Nightingale Training School. So Florence Nightingale had a very high opinion of Rebecca Strong, and ultimately, via the military hospital at Netley and Dundee Royal Infirmary, Rebecca, or Mrs. Strong, I think as she would prefer to be known, found herself here at Glasgow Royal Infirmary as the very first matron in 1879.
So you've alluded to this already, Neil. She was relentless in her goal to improve standards. She perpetually sought to improve patient care. She was a single mother, and what she achieved was remarkable. She was highly principled, and when they refused to build the nurse's home, she resigned. Didn't think for a second of staying. "No. I'm going if you won't build a nurse's home." So she left. She felt that if her nurses were to give the best of themselves at work, they had to have somewhere comfortable to stay. So I guess probably with their tails between their legs, the managers in 1887 built the nurse's home. So you can still see it. It's across diagonally from here. It's now the procurement building.
So it had 85 rooms. It had a tennis court, a recreation room, and it linked to the main hospital via what was commonly called the chicken run. So chicken run was essentially a large conservatory. It was 180 foot long, made of glass, and it connected, as I said, the nurse's home to the main hospital. And it's said that matron would sit in her flat above the glass conservatory, looking down, watching the nurses when they came home to make sure that, A, they were on time, and B, they hadn't brought any men with them. And she would also make sure that when they came into the hospital for work, that they had their hats on, apparently.
So William Macewen, who we've not yet mentioned, was a huge ally of Rebecca Strong's. And together, they developed this block training scheme for nurses that basically meant that nurses had dedicated time off the ward, where they got lectures and tutorials and were educated, and then they had other blocks of time on the ward. So the Proprietary School for Nurse Training opened in 1893, and this block training method has now been adopted throughout the world. So I think probably up until this opened, Rebecca Strong was more celebrated elsewhere than she was in Glasgow, where she did all this.

Niall Murphy:
Classic Glasgow.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
I know. Classic Glasgow. But we're big fans, so we're hoping to spread the word.

Niall Murphy:
Good. Good.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
So I mentioned William Macewen. So William Macewen worked under Lord Lister, and he was heavily influenced by Lister's theories of antisepsis. He was one of the most innovative surgeons of his time. He performed the first successful brain surgery operation. So if you think now, I mean, you get CT scans, you get MRI scans. If there's a problem in somebody's brain, you see it in those images.
But what he did was he had a girl who had epilepsy, and he looked to see where the twitching was, which part of the body of the twitching was coming from, and then used anatomy and physiology to identify from that where the tumour was located, went in, removed the tumour, and she survived for, I think, eight or nine years after that. That's pretty remarkable.
He also invented bone grafts. He founded Erskine Hospital and invented the Erskine artificial limb. And he was also a police surgeon. So before A&E, he was a police surgeon. And then one of the other really important things that he contributed was photography. So he would take photos of cases before and after, so surgical cases, or even just cases that he saw in the wards. And in those days, unlike now, and beautifully scribed histories, if you like, so taking people through pages and pages of the actual history of a patient, they must have had lots more time than we do. And Macewen would keep these photographs with the cases, which beautifully illustrated and helped to educate others.
He also loved animals. And there's a couple of stories that Hilary and I are both very fond of, both being dog lovers. So he had a dog called Leo, and he used to bring Leo into the hospital with him. So first example of a therapet. So one day, poor Leo got stolen, so there were dog stealers, and he stole poor old Leo. And Macewen was upset, but somebody gave him a tip off and said that they thought that Leo was in the shop with two women. So Macewen went down to the shop. Sure enough, there was Leo and the two women were there. And they bought the dog from one of the dog stealers.
So a policeman was called. And the policeman basically said, "Okay, so if the dog comes to you, Macewen, you can have him. If he doesn't, he stays here." So of course the dog went over to Macewen, Macewen took his dog, came back to the hospital. And a few days later, one of the women came to see him and explained that her sister was unwell, they bought the dog, and she was really missing him. So William Macewen gave them the dog back. So that was nice. He had a big a heart.
However, he didn't get on with all of his colleagues, so I think he caused big disruptions in the hospital. So Sir George Beatson, he was a pioneering oncologist, so The Beatson, you've all heard of The Beatson. And so, it comes from Sir George Beatson. So pioneering oncologist, and he also was involved in St. Andrew's ambulance and the Red Cross. And Macewen, in an extremely derogatory fashion, used to refer to him as that ambulance man. So they both worked for Lister. I don't know whether or not it was a bit of rivalry because of that.
So I mean, there's lots and lots of other key developments that we can talk about. We don't have time. So I guess that, towards the end of the 19th century, the older buildings were falling into a state of disrepair. And then coinciding with the Queen Victoria, James Miller, as you said, designed this building, built on the site of the Adams building. There's a lot of controversy in 1927 when they pulled down the Lister wards. So still, to this day, we're both a bit bitter that they pulled down the Lister wards.

Niall Murphy:
So is that when... The plaque dates from then?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yeah.

Niall Murphy:
It's just the most difficult plaque to see.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yeah. I know. It's such a shame.

Niall Murphy:
It's tucked behind the bus stop, behind the railings. It's such a shame, because it's beautiful.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
I know. I know. So they built a lecture theatre, which is no longer use on this site. But there was international outcry when they said they were going to pull down the Lister ward, but they pulled it down.

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
A lecture theatre is our next big plan.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yeah, that is our big plan. We're going to have a Lister avatar in the lecture theatre.

Niall Murphy:
Classic.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
So then in 1948, the hospital became part of NHS Scotland. The second reconstruction started in the 1970s. And over the course of the years, various bits have been added and removed. So I guess there's a couple of other people that it's important to mention. So James McCune Smith, so he's the first African American to get a medical degree. So in America, they refused to admit him to medical school, so he came to the University of Glasgow, and he got his degree in 1835. No, 1935. 1835?

Niall Murphy:
1835.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
I told you I wasn't a historian. 1835. So he spent time as a medical student here. And then MacIntyre established the very first x-ray department in the world. This opened in the late 1890s. So right here in the Royal Infirmary, this was the very first x-ray department in the world. Ian Donald pioneered the use of ultrasound.

Niall Murphy:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very interesting story behind that.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yeah. Exactly. So he helped use ultrasound to diagnose foetal abnormality the 1950s. And then, we are proud, I guess, because we know, Jackie Taylor, so she, in 2018, became the very first woman president of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. So a long time coming. So we were delighted to when that happened.

Niall Murphy:
Great, fantastic. I mean, obviously the Adams building was sacrificed to build this. But how did this building survive? Because obviously you've got... I mean this is where the Glasgow Royal Infirmary is interesting, because it's had three great Scottish architects involved in it. You've got Robert Adam, then you've got James Miller, and you've got Basil Spence, who does the blocks to the east. But how did this survive? Because when given the surrounding area with the exception of the cathedral, it's pretty much levelled for the motorway ring road coming through, and then the wholef of town head just disappears. How did this get spared?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
So do you know... I don't know how it got spared, but I'm pleased it did. And I think you'll find us chained to the railings if you say they're going to take it down. Yeah. So I think probably partly because they just kept adding bits on. So at no point did anybody decide to reconstruct this part.
I think initially they had much grander plans for Sir Basil Spence's building, but that didn't materialise, so they did bits of it. Hilary will tell you a bit more about that in a second. But they did bits of it. And then, the plans didn't come to fruition, probably because they ran out of money. And so, they attached this part of the hostel with a link corridor. It was kind of like a floating corridor, which attaches this building to the newer buildings, and we're still here.

Niall Murphy:
I suppose it's a testament to James Miller's skill as an architect. He never built a hospital before he built this. And he'd obviously mastered his brief so well that it's still in use more than a century later and still functions perfectly fine as a hospital, which is quite a tribute to the man, of his skill.
Okay. Going back to other issues. Obviously it's called the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. So can you tell us more about the links to royalty? I mean, obviously Queen Victoria, this is the Jubilee building as part of it. So she's sitting above the doorway in this great rather stern sculpture by as Albert Hemstock Hodge, who tended to collaborate with James Miller quite often. And there are also links to Edward VII as well, who opened the hospital. But can you tell us more about the connections to the royals and the impact they have on medicine as we come to the 21st century?

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
So you've already mentioned that the site of the royals, the previous site of the bishop's castle from the 12th century. And William Wallace spent some time at the bishop's castle. And Mary Queen of Scotts and her supporters tried to take the castle in 1570. But the Royal itself was given its royal charter in 1791, and this bit of land was granted to the hospital by the crown. So that's probably the earliest link with the royals.
So basically, 1914, King George and Queen Mary officially opened the Miller building, and they opened the former Children's Hospital York Hill at the same time. And the story goes that when Queen Mary came in to open the hospital, she was meant to turn left to go ward one, but she turned right and she opened ward two instead. So this is why the Royal doesn't have a ward one, because you didn't want to correct Queen Mary for turning the wrong way. And Queen Mary also gifted this beautiful bookcase to the hospital containing some books. I don't know what happened to the books that were in the bookcase. And this is why we use this bookcase to illustrate some of the connections with the royal family over the years.
So in 1986, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, they came and opened the Queen Elizabeth building off Alexandra Parade. And in the bookcase, we have the visitor's book with Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth's signatures. We're quite proud of that. And the Princess Royal Maternity opened in 2001, having moved from Rottenrow. And the Jubilee Building, which houses A&E and plastic surgery following the closure of Canniesburn Hospital, was named for the Golden Jubilee, and that opened in 2002.
Now, more recently this year we were awarded a Queen's green canopy tree to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee. So the hospital's going to receive a native tree to Scotland. I'm not sure what it's going to be. I hope it's not something too huge, like a Douglas Fir or something, because we plan to plant it out in the garden just to the right of the steps, so that you can actually see it from Castle Street, and we'll have a plaque telling the public what it's all about. And then, as you said, Queen Victoria, she watches over all of us that come into the museum. And last year, we restored the lighting outside, so that we can light her up in different colours at all times of the year.

Niall Murphy:
Very good. Okay. So next up to touch on royalty brings us to obviously one of the key figures in the history of the development of the hospital, Joseph Lister himself. So in later on in his life, he will become the senior surgeon to Queen Victoria, and also Edward VII. But his pioneering work in Glasgow transformed the survival chances of any patient undergoing surgery. So can you tell us how Lister made medical history in 1865 with his treatment of James Greenlees, this young boy who most unfortunately had this compound fracture because of a car going over his leg. So can you tell us all about this great breakthrough which ends up being so reported in the lancet?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yep. So I think that you have to go back to Victorian times to understand the significance of this. Because I think that we all brand about Lister developed a theory of antisepsis. It's so important. I mean this would be such a different world if Lister hadn't made those discoveries. So if you think about, particularly after COVID, if you think about a world where there's no hand washing, there's no gloves, there's no cleanliness, so in Victorian times that was the reality. And people thought that infection came from miasma or bad ear. And the dirtier and bloodier a surgeon's gown was, the more lauded he was and the prouder he felt.

Niall Murphy:
That's just a horrible thing.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
So they used to wander about the place with these absolutely filthy... They were filthy, these people. But that was a real mark of, "He's a great surgeon." And this is in a year where there wasn't anaesthetic, and so a surgeon's skill really came down to how quickly he could work. Because remember, they didn't have lots of these modern treatments that we have, so often, they would be amputating things. So Lister, when he was a student, watched another surgeon, Robert Liston, so a similar name.
So Liston was a bit of a performer, and he considered himself to be the fastest knife in the West. So Lister was in an operating theatre watching him with other people, and he would, Liston, theatrically got out his knife, this poor man who's conscious, about to have a limb amputated, and you said, "Time me, gentlemen," before he chopped the leg off. And I mean, it took seconds, which I guess is what you wanted at the time. That's not what happens now, I can assure you.
So Lister, he married a lady called Agnes Syme. So Agnes Syme was the daughter of James Syme, a famous surgeon from Edinburgh, and they worked together. So Agnes doesn't often get as much credit as we think she should, but she was really crucial to Lister's experiments and his research. So they did lots of experiments and research together. So one of the things they did together, as a slight aside, was they took chloroform and administered it to each other to see how much was the correct dose of chloroform. It's pretty sporting of Agnes. So Agnes was a botanist to trade, and she would do these beautiful illustrations of the experiments that they did and these lovely notebooks, so I think she was fairly instrumental to his discoveries.
So Lister was always fascinated by science and medicine, in particular microscopy, which he'd learned from his father. And he looked at inflammation. So it was fairly well known that inflammation preceded many of these postoperative complications that they saw, including sepsis. So as you'd said, he was introduced to the work of Louis Pasteur, and that highlighted that living organisms caused putrefaction. So Lister used that information along with the word that he had undertaken, and he realised that contamination was the vector of infection.
So he realised that there was contamination from people's hands, from instruments, from their gowns. And although he didn't appreciate the full extent of germs, he didn't have any concept that there was lots of bacteria and viruses and things, he did realise that these things were contaminated, and in order to try and reduce post-operative gangrene and sepsis, you had to get rid of this contamination. So he basically started using phenol or carbolic acid, and he invented this thing called the carbolic acid spray. So the original apparatus for that, the Hunterian Museum have in Glasgow. And he essentially started spraying everything that came in within-

Niall Murphy:
Is that what's in the background of-

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yes. Exactly. Of the picture. So everything that came within a few centimetres of Lister got sprayed by this carbolic acid spray. So his first documented success was James Greenlees. So James Greenlees was a poor wee 11 year old boy who was on High Street and got knocked down by a cart, and had a compound fracture on his leg. That basically means that the bone was sticking out through the skin. So Lister got his carbolic acid spray and meticulously applied it to the wounds, and the dressings, and the dressings were cleaned.
So bearing in mind that previously dressings would often be reused between different patients, this was very out there. So basically, after six weeks, wee James Greenlees was cured and walked out the hospital. So Lister then started instructing everybody who worked with him to wash their hands pre and postoperatively, to use the carbolic acid spray, to wear gloves. All the instruments were washed. And he also cleverly realised that the porous handles of the instrument were probably also harbouring bugs, so he got rid of them.
So that all sounds like, "Wow, imagine anybody thinking otherwise." But he was completely mocked. So people thought this man is nuts and he was heavily criticised. But he did have some supporters, fortunately for I think all of us. And so, very gradually, as his work was replicated, it became clear that, as it says up there, that he was the greatest surgical benefactor to mankind. So he completely revolutionised mortality rates, surgery, and the practise of medicine throughout the world.

Niall Murphy:
Incredible. So what about... You've got all of these other pictures, and people on the walls, and we've touched on some of them. What about the other pioneers who passed through the buildings on this site? So you've mentioned John McIntyre and the world's first x-ray department, and you've mentioned William Macewen, who carried out the first successful brain surgery, Rebecca Strong with the training of nurses.
So can you explain why Glasgow managed to produce so many great pioneers? And I think all of this is related to industry in the city as well. With all the great pioneers in the industry, Glasgow just seems to have been able to do some of that. Can you explain why they're able to do that? Because they're great disruptors of their age, Lister very much being this disruptor. Can you explain that?

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
Yeah. I can't, actually. I mean, I think their achievements speak for themselves, and they were so sure about what they believed in that they just carried that through and it all came to fruition. I think there's a couple of other people that you can add to the list that you've mentioned. One of them is a doctor called O.H. Mavor. And his illustrations are on this wall over on the side of the museum. So O.H. Mavor, he worked as a resident at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, but he also is called James Bridie. He's works under the pseudonym James Bridie. And he's a playwright and a caricaturist.
And what's interesting about, O.H. Mavor, or James Bridie, is that he was the co-founder of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, and he also invented Daft Friday, the big ball in Christmastime at Glasgow University. So he did lots of these illustrations of characters who worked at the Royal Infirmary. As I say, we've got four up there, but we actually were given a selection of 14 of them. And they highlight the quirks and sometimes the disagreements with the managers at the Royal of that time. And I had a very nice meeting with the Friends of Glasgow Museums who'd given us a grant, and they came in and told me that their founder, Tom Honeyman, was also a co-founder of the Citizens with O.H. Mavor. So that was a nice link.
The other person worth mentioning is David Cuthbertson. So we have a brass plaque of David Cuthbertson in centre block entrance. And he was a clinical biochemist, and he led the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at the Royal Infirmary, but also worked at the Rowett Institute, which looked at the investigation of human metabolism and nutrition. He wrote lots of books, published lots of scientific articles regarding the metabolic response to trauma and infection.
And he was quite good at performing experiments. And one of the ones that was very interesting was he wanted to assess whether the metabolic response to trauma was due to the trauma itself or due to the fact that you were confined to bed for all the time that you were recovering. So he recruited medical students to stay in bed for two weeks with their legs splinted, and he paid them two pounds a week to do that. So I don't know whether that would pass the ethics committee now, or I don't think medical students would do that experiment. But he loved his job so much that even when he retired, the Royal Infirmary created an honorary position for him up until the day he died at 89.

Niall Murphy:
Fascinating. I wonder whether it's because, not just the world, but Glasgow in general, that it's a node for attracting people who are interested and are enthusiastic and passionate about their subject and are willing to engage in the broader world. Because with Lister, part of that whole connection with Louis Pasteur is he's talking to the chemist, Thomas Anderson down at the university because they're walking into work together every day, and that's where it comes from.
And it might be something to do with soft networks like that. Because it's a similar story with the ultrasound. And it was Donald McIntyre going to a factory. And it was because one of his patients saying, "Why don't you come along and see what my factory can do and things like that." And that's the connection. I wonder whether it's eureka moments like that and those soft networks that you actually need.

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
And I think this soft networking is so important, even in today's modern medicine. When you walk down corridors, you meet your colleagues, you share ideas in a informal setting. And I think we've lost a little bit of that with the fact that everyone's on their emails and Teams meetings. So I think that would be useful, to get that back.

Niall Murphy:
Yes, very much. Absolutely. Okay. Can we talk about the exhibits? Because you've got some fantastic exhibits here. I'm particularly admiring these... Are they cathode ray tubes? I seem to recall stuff like that from my chemistry days in school. Which are rather impressive. So you have this kind of fantastic collection, and every good museum is founded on good collections. But where did you go about finding all of these artefacts? How did you bring them all together, and what were your sources for doing that?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
So a few sources. So people have donated things, which is very kind. So lots of people who have worked here or who have had relatives who've worked here have come forward and offered us things. So we've got old badges, we've got old TENS machines, we've got one of the first machines used to deliver electroconvulsive therapy in psychiatry. So lots of people have come forward with things which has been great.
We are well known in the hospital, myself, Hilary, Morven, and John, for wandering about and taking things that we think that people maybe aren't aware of how important they are. And we may have, one December, put on high vis jackets, hard hats, and torches and going creeping about in the attics of the hospital and identified several quite interesting things that some of which are now on display in here.
I think there wasn't really somewhere for all these nice things to be kept. So there's lots of things lying about the hospital, paintings, et cetera, that we've managed to amass, archive, and let people see. And we've also been known to have a wee look at eBay, and we get some things in here that people perhaps didn't realise the significance of them. So we have one of the original programmes from the university with all the different lectures, including Lister and various other people. So we got that on eBay for 10 pounds. So it's now here. It's a better home than someone who didn't appreciate its value.

Niall Murphy:
Very good. The other thing that interests me as well, when we're looking at exhibits and everything, is the links between the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and other hospitals or medical institutions within the vicinity. So you've obviously got the blind asylum, which still survives up the way with Europe's only five-sided clock, which is now incorporated into the car park, but used to be part of the hospital campus. So you've got that.
And then you also had the great Rottenrow Hospital, which was the Glasgow Royal Maternity Hospital, and it's the exhibit sitting at the back, which is that fantastic fireplace. Can you tell us a bit more about that? And also, I'm wondering whether you can answer a question which we were discussing in the office, which was how on earth did the Rottenrow Hospital end up on that site? Why would anyone build a maternity hospital at the top of such a steep hill? It seems incredibly selfish.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Men. Men built it at the top of a steep hill.

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
Yeah. Well I don't know if I can answer the second question, but I can tell you a bit about the fireplace.

Niall Murphy:
Please do.

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
What happened was we're quite pally with all the porters and the security guys now in the hospital, and it was one of them, a guy called Ziggy, who said, "Dr. Wilson, I've got something you might like up in the seventh floor." And he brought down this old dusty fireplace. And I said, "What on earth is it?" And it was the fireplace that was at Rottenrow Hospital before it was demolished in 2001.
So what it has is it has the signatures of all the people that worked at Rottenrow, dating way back to 1918. And we've also got some door frames with similar etchings. And what we'd really love to do is to get a research student to look at all these names, because I think some of them have gone on to be very famous obstetricians of their time.
We also have an original letter awarding Rottenrow a royal charter. And we've also got several pieces of medical equipment. The very nice lady called Belinda who gave us the O.H. Mavor caricatures, she is the granddaughter of Professor Munro Kerr, and he was a very prestigious obstetrician in Glasgow who was the first muirhead chair of obstetrics and gynaecology. And as well as these lovely caricatures, she also found somebody that owned his original top hat and a lovely brown leather case with his initials on it. So we've got that as well.

Niall Murphy:
Very good. Okay. So that brings us back to the whole kind of topic and the role of historic hospitals and medical museums. And the role is obviously still in use, but there are many historic hospitals around the country and in Glasgow particular which are no longer in use. And obviously a key issue in this kind of day and age with climate change is how do we go about retrofitting buildings like this to give them a further use in the future?
And what can we do to encourage people to adapt buildings like this that have these fantastic histories, that you don't necessarily want to lose? I mean it would be criminal if this building was demolished, but we have, in the city, things like the Victoria Infirmary. I was quite heavily involved in the campaign to try and save as much of that as we could. But unfortunately, we were totally at the mercy of the developers, because it had no statutory protection for the entire campus.
With the exception of the one administration building which was B listed, everything else was up for grabs. And so it was very much at the whim of the developer as to whether or not it was going to be saved, which was kind of a shame when you look at things like the Royal Samaritan Hospital for Women in Govanhill, which is such a beautiful campus, which has been entirely saved, thankfully, and put to a new use. So what can we do to encourage people to look after and maintain these buildings in longer term? Any thoughts about that?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yeah. I mean, I think it's difficult. And as you've said, we've lost the Victoria, we've lost the Western, we've lost bits of Stobhill. Although obviously Stobhill, when it was gifted to the city, the deal was that it had to be a hospital on the campus. So some of the old buildings are still there and there obviously is a new hospital on site, but it's very much a modern building. The Western, when it was pulled down the deal was that the university got the land back, and so they've done what they have with it.
So I guess in an ideal world, we would keep all of these buildings, we would have lots of money, and we would have them all in a condition where people could go and use them as whatever they were repurposed as. So you might have some as nice restaurants or meeting areas or whatever. But I guess that's not practical. But in Glasgow we do have the Royal, and the Royal is a functioning hospital, and it's got to serve its population effectively, and so things need to progress. If things didn't progress, we'd still be sitting in a room with an surgeon wearing a dirty gown, and using a dirty knife, and asking someone to time while they chopped off your leg. So progress is not a bad thing.
But I think you're absolutely right. We do have to try and make sure that, particularly for us, this space, so it's parts of the hospital are B listed, although are ways of getting around the B listing, if places are not safe. I mean, there are some parts of some of these hospitals that we've mentioned that were in such bad states of disrepair that it was going to be virtually impossible to restore them without more money than we have. And sometimes, I think it's a balance. So healthcare is important, NHS is great, it's free at the point of delivery. And probably if you ask most people, whilst maybe your heart would say, "Oh, I want to keep the Victoria Infirmary," if the choice was that or it was having better facilities within a hospital to treat patients, it's quite hard to justify then.

Niall Murphy:
It is. It is a difficult one. I think what I'm interested in is where the NHS goes with things like this. Because I know that the NHS is interested in things like local place plans, and this is where I'm very interested in the work of Harry Burns. And he thinks that a lot of what happened to Glasgow in the 1960s and '70s, with the demolition of whole parts of the city, had a real bad impact on the psyche of the city and Glaswegians in general, because you're seeing your city being destroyed and it's dislocating. And suddenly having that whole loss of memory and associations with places that you grew up and were attached to actually really does damage the psyche of the people. And so it's how you deal with issues like that. So there is perhaps something to look at there. I don't know.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
No, I mean, I think that's definitely true. And I think if the Royal was to become a victim and this building was to be demolished, I think it would affect a lot of people.

Niall Murphy:
Yeah, absolutely. It does... Something about the building or buildings in general, people have an affection for, and it seeps into the feel of a building as well. You can tell how loved something is. So yeah, something like what you've done here is an example of how much you love the building.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
And we've got grand plans.

Niall Murphy:
An even bigger museum. That's what it could be adapted to. Okay, so bearing that in mind, what next? And I'm really impressed by your logo, which is really beautiful logo, and I'd love to know who designed it, because they've done a really fantastic job on it. But obviously it circles around the bee in the centre, and by the entrance you've got a jar of honey, which is a big clue. So can you tell us more about your plans for a bee garden and the idea of the walkthrough health, heritage, and honey. Sounds really fascinating. Can you tell us something about

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
Yeah. Well certainly in terms of the future of this museum, as you said, we're only open two days a week for two hours on a Tuesday and a Thursday. And although we've been open for seven weeks, we are number 73 on Trip Advisor out of 466 things to do in Glasgow, so that's not bad. And we're hoping maybe to go for a museum accreditation at some point with the assistance of Ross McGregor and Morven at the Royal College Heritage Committee.
And we'd like to extend our opening hours to match the other tourist offerings in Cathedral Precinct. But because we've got volunteers that run the museum, that's going to take a bit of time. So we're hopeful we've got this far, and I think we're confident we're going to get there. We're going to have quite a lot of events. So this is the first of the evening events that we've done, and we're quite pleased with the way that the acoustics are and the seating and everything.
So we're going to have some other events, including Ian Bone, who's a retired neurosurgeon. He's going to talk about Macewen. And we're also going to have a nice lady coming and talking about the medicinal benefits of honey in November, on the day before our honey sale in November. So she's Nicky Bitas from Napier's, and she's going to come and give us a talk. So we're going to extend by having events, not just having people coming into the museum.
And then obviously, the bees, they're really exciting. In terms of the design of our logo, it was Graven Images. And Graven Images very kindly did the logo for free for us, a girl called Jillian. And our bee is at the centre with the medicinal plants surrounding the bee, because we felt we wanted the logo to look a bit more modern for the more junior members of the hospital, it would be more engaging with them rather than just sticking with the original GRI logo, which is quite old-fashioned now. So initially, we had two beehives, and they were owned by two professional beekeepers, and then a third beekeeper came on board, who is Dean Parker, who is the chef at Celentanos, the restaurant on Cathedral House.

Niall Murphy:
Yes. Yeah, yeah. Which has a fantastic reputation.

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
Yes. So he was delighted to have his hive here. So if you go and have a meal there, you might get GRI honey on the menu. And then the fourth hive is Kate and I. We've just become beekeepers by doing our course at the Ayrshire Beekeeper Society this summer. So yeah, so we'll have a nice event with lots and lots of honey for sale in November. And I'm going to let Kate talk about the walk, because this is our big grand plan for extending the museum offering.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yeah. So we want to create what we're calling the Royal Walk: A Stroll Through Health, Heritage, and Honey. So essentially, you would come out of the museum... So it's a small space and we plan, as Hilary's said, to have rotating exhibitions and things. But we'd like to have a more permanent, larger exhibit. So we come out the front, onto Cathedral Precinct, and at the side we've got two reasonably sized areas that we're going to transform into medicinal herbs and plants, and have herb gardens.
We've had a bit of input as mentioned from Lisa at Botanics. So she's head of the horticulture course there, and she's been really helpful. Our queen's green canopy tree is going to go at the front there for everybody to see. And we're going to have some benches and things where people can sit. So you'll come out, and you'll turn left, and you'll go down, start with the cathedral on your right-hand side, and you'll go around, come up beside our bees, which are, I guess, this way, so diagonal from here, our four hives. You can see them, but you can't get in. Don't want anybody to get stung. So you'll get to see our bees at work.
And then you'll come up this side of the old chicken run, so you remember the conservatory. So we're going to call that Rebecca Strong Alley. And you'll then be able to go around the back of the hospital, where you have other areas that we'll do with probably a wildflower meadow, other trees, medicinal plants, et cetera, come out onto Wishart Street, go along past the Necropolis. There's lots of incumbents in the necropolis who have links to the Royal Infirmary.
So what we'll do with this walk, which will finish back in Cathedral Precinct, is we'll have plaques. So talking about the history of nursing, probably, initially. Because there's a lot to say about the history of nursing. We've only touched on a little bit of it. So starting off with that, then attribute to the North Parish Washing Green Society. So that was essentially a charity that's still in existence today. You can become a lifelong member for 50 pounds. And they essentially give money to people in need.
And they had a washing green where people who could come and do their washing. So that was just adjacent to where we are just now. So they've been in to see us, and they would like to commission a big plaque, so we're going to have that as part of our walk. We'll have information about the herbs and information about the flowers and things on the way around. We're hoping to have an orchard. We're hoping that we'll be able to have some plum trees, some apple trees, and maybe we'll expand from honey to chutney and other things, cider.

Niall Murphy:
Would Rebecca Strong approve of that?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
I'm sure she would. I'm sure she would. And then we're also going to mark out with step counts, so people know roughly how many steps they've done to try and promote... I guess one of the things, not only for the staff, but for the city, it's nice to have somewhere where you can go, you can learn a little bit about the hospital, also you can get the physical activity, and it's not strenuous, and have a wander around. And outside the Necropolis, we'll have information about the people who are linked with hospital. That's our plan.

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
And then it comes straight back into Cathedral Precinct. And then the final link is with Peter Lowe, who's the founder of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. His tombstone is just over at the side of the cathedral. So it's a nice link that brings everyone back in.

Niall Murphy:
Great. Right. Sounds wonderful. Okay. Right. Bringing you to our final question at least, which won't be the final question, but this is a totally loaded question, and we ask this of all our guests. So what is your favourite building in Glasgow, and what would it tell you if it's walls could talk?

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
I'll go first, since you've just done a lot of talking there. So yeah, I think my favourite building is probably the Kibble Palace. And so, I live close to the Botanic Gardens, and I've always loved the Kibble Palace because it's somewhere that you go in and you're in a different world, with the temperature, the smells of the beautiful ancient ferns.
And I think what amazed me was that the Kibble Palace was a privately owned glasshouse for Sir John Kibble. And when he wanted to give it to Glasgow, I think it was due to go to Queen's Park, but he had some argument with the town council and-

Niall Murphy:
They knocked him back.

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
So we got it over in the West End and the Botanic Gardens. And so it remained there obviously until it went down south to get repaired in 2004. So it's been on a couple of journeys. It came up to the Botanic Gardens from Loch Long, from John Kibble's Garden on a barge. And then it went down south as a construction to get redone over the two years, with multimillion pound cost.
And I think it's like everything. You don't really realise you miss something until it's not there. And I remember the couple of years the Kibble Palace was away, I kind of thought, "Oh, I can't wait for it to come back." I had nice memories of the Orchid Fair. I would go with my parents. My dad was into orchids. And that was a really nice memory, going in with friends and walking our dog in the park. And it's just always a building that I associate with really happy memories.

Niall Murphy:
Right. Kate?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Okay, so I'm going to tell you my favourite building is a building that's not there anymore, but just bear with me. So I think my favourite building, it's quite a difficult question, but I think it's a Western Infirmary. So obviously the Western Infirmary is now razed to the ground. So a bit like the Glasgow-Edinburgh thing, you were either a Western doctor or a Royal doctor. So I spent most of my former years in the Western. I was very much Western through and through. I'm not now. Now I'm Royal through and through.
So I spent many years there, and I've got lots of fun memories of going between the old buildings and the new buildings, along this filthy corridor with all manner of creatures in it that shouldn't be there, ghosts. Terrified as a responsible doctor, running through the corridor, because I was scared that something was going to get me.
And then there are bits of it that are still there. So there's the Alexander Elder Chapel, so built in 1925 is listed. And I'm not particularly religious, but often you'd have these terribly busy night shifts. A&E would be over in the new building. And we quite often sit for 10 or 15 minutes in the chapel. So the chapel's beautiful. It has beautiful stained-glass windows, and it was built as a tribute to nursing and medical staff that lost their life during the war. So I've got lots of fond memories of there.
And I think if it's walls could talk to you, I think there's lots of things that the Western Infirmary would have to tell you. But one thing I like, which links in with here, so why Macewen moved to the Western after he worked here, we already alluded to him maybe being a slightly difficult character with that ambulance man. So in the Western, he wanted to operate, and there was no space in the operating theatre. So nowadays, surgeons might stamp their feet and go off, and sulk, and have a coffee. But not William Macewen. William Macewen got out his drapes, got his table, set up an operating theatre in the corridor, and just carried on. So I'm sure that there are lots of tales like that, that the Western could tell you.

Niall Murphy:
Thank you very much. Okay. Right. We're going to open it up to the floor, and if there are any questions from the floor. So this is a special edition, now's your chance.

Audience Member:
I worked here a few years back as a junior doctor and there was always rumours that there are tunnels from the sub-basement leading to all sorts of bits of the city, including George Square and even further afield. Is that remotely true or is that junior doctor rumour?

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
I don't know. I've heard these rumours as well, including the one where there's a tunnel and a pipe going down to the dry gate that pumps beer into the doctor's dining room in the seventh floor. I'm sure that's not true. I don't know. I don't know if anybody else in the audience would know anything about that.

Niall Murphy:
There is a tunnel between the city chambers and it goes somewhere into George Square. But the shelf that takes you out of it is blocked, so nobody knows where it goes to in George Square. So we had a theory when we were looking at this, I did a conservation management plan for George Square, that it might take you into the Cenotaph, and the Cenotaph was in fact a mini rocket ship that was the escape route out if the city chambers were ever besieged or anything, but possibly not. Any other questions?

Audience Member:
During the pandemic, having the big open Nightingale wards wasn't very conducive to preventing COVID spreading. There was a lot of chat at the time about this building was not fit for purpose and they're going to rebuild the hospital on the same site. Are there any active plans to do that? Or is that not the case anymore?

Dr. Kate Stevens:
So I think there are plans to modernise the Royal Infirmary. I don't know that there's plans to rebuild on this site. Like we said earlier, they'll have to take Hilary, and Morven, and John, and I out to do that. So I think there are modernization plans. But as far as we know, I don't think there are plans to rebuild exactly here.

Audience Member Q:
Thank you very much. That was an absolutely fascinating series of talks. I have two quick questions. You painted a very compelling picture of the infirmary as a place where people were free to be radical and experiment, and brought about really significant innovations in medicine. How easy was it for women doctors to come through the infirmary? Was the infirmary place that was early in opening its doors to young women who wanted to be doctors? And then quickly, my second question was, you spoke about how the original infirmary was funded, its opening. How was it funded through the 19th century? I mean, I gather it wouldn't have got state funding. Was it a charitable? Was it in receipt of city charity?

Dr. Hilary Wilson:
I think in relation to your first question, there is a nice piece of work that one of our committee members, Rosa McMillan, did about the pathology department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. And they were very forward-thinking about employing women pathologists. And she's done a nice thesis on that work. So yes, certainly in pathology, they were very supportive of women in that department, far more than any other hospital at that time. So Morven has a-

Morven:
Hi, I'm Morven. I'm one of the trustees. So the first woman resident in the Royal was in 1899. And actually, the permanent resident was Ann Louise McElroy, who's quite a famous obstetrician. So the first female resident, that was before quite a lot of other places. We're doing a bit of work at other early women pioneers as well, so watch this space. There might have been other expressions in other people.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
She was the first woman professor in the UK as well.

Morven:
Yeah. Yeah.

Niall Murphy:
Fascinating.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
She worked with Munro Kerr, that I mentioned. And then, so your second question, subscriptions. So until it became the NHS, it was subscriptions. So individuals and companies would subscribe. And so, we have a subscription receipt actually on the wall over there from one of the mineries, I think. And so basically, your company would subscribe, and if your company was a subscriber, then you could make use of what was on offer in the Royal Infirmary.

Niall Murphy:
Yeah. That was one of the things that I felt quite emotional about with the Victorian Infirmary, because it had been built by subscriptions from people right across the south side of the city, and therefore it belonged to the people from the south side of the city. And I felt we should have some say in what happened to it, and it just didn't really work out like that unfortunately.

Dr. Kate Stevens:
Yeah. I kind of wish that we'd got into all of this before so we could have gone and had a look at the Western and the Victorian, tried to least salvage some things.

Niall Murphy:
Yes. I think it depends on the NHS board and how they handle it. So Edinburgh seems to be a lot more progressive than Glasgow does. But I'm hoping that Glasgow and Clyde will learn from those things and will be more thoughtful about how it handles some of these fantastic estates. We'll see.

Morven:
There's some nice plaques round about the Royals, as well, from some benefactors, if you ever get into the Royal to have a look. But David Dale, he was a famous person from New Lanark, sort of a philanthropist. He was involved in the Royal initially, for several years, until his death. So he actually helped set up the funding. He was chair of the funding committee for the Royal Infirmary initially, in the 1780s and onwards. But you should have a look. There's some quite interesting plaques about how things were funded, and they funded beds, and they funded wards, and different things as well.

Niall Murphy:
Any other questions? Now's your chance. Okay, well, shall we wrap this up then? Well, Hilary, Kate, thank you very much for your time. Absolute pleasure talking to you both. And I wish you every success with the museum, and I hope it goes from strength to strength, particularly with your walk, which sounds fascinating. And I hope everybody joins me in thanking both Hilary and Kate for their time this evening.

Katharine Neil:
Glasgow City Heritage Trust is an independent charity and grant funder that promotes the understanding, appreciation, and conservation of Glasgow's historic built environment. Do you want to know more? Have a look at our website at glasgowheritage.org.uk, and follow us on social media at Glasgow Heritage. This podcast was produced by Inner Ear for Glasgow City Heritage Trust. The podcast is kindly sponsored by the National Trust for Scotland and supported by Tunnocks.