Springburn Virtual Museum

Community life

Stobhill Hospital, c 1950s

Stobhill Hospital, first planned in 1899, was built as a Poor Law Hospital by the parish council and was formally opened in September 1904 with a complement of 1867 beds, although patients had been admitted since the previous year. The cost of the building was £250000, and Stobhill was promised to be one of the showpieces of Glasgow.

In September 1914, at the beginning of the first world war, the hospital was requisitioned by the Royal Army Medical Corps and the first batch of wounded servicemen arrived by specially converted 'ambulance train' at a temporary railway platform built within the grounds.

A staff of 240 nurses cared for over 1000 patients at any given time, until the return of the hospital to civilian use in the spring of 1920. Stobhill became a general hospital in 1929, with a specialist maternity unit which closed in April 1992.

Source: Glasgow City Archives