Town’s Hospital

The Town’s Hospital was a poorhouse Scottish institution, occasionally referred to as a workhouse, provided accommodation for the destitute and poor. in Glasgow, Scotland, founded in 1731.^[1] It occupied a site at the Old Green on Great Clyde Street, at the junction of present-day Ropework Lane. The hospital was managed by the Lord Provost and forty-eight directors, twelve of whom were elected by the town council. Of the remainder, twelve represented the Church of Scotland’s General Session, twelve the merchant’s guild and twelve the producer’s guild. A year after its opening the Town’s Hospital accommodated sixty-one old people and ninety children.^[2]

The hospital closed in 1844, although it was reopened briefly in 1848 to house the victims of a cholera outbreak. It was demolished and a warehouse built on the site;^[3] its function as a home for the destitute poor of the parish was taken over by the Glasgow City Poorhouse, sometimes also known as the Town’s Hospital. Opened in 1845, it occupied premises formerly known as the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum.^[2]