Royal Edinburgh Hospital

The Royal Edinburgh Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Morningside Place, Edinburgh, Scotland. It is managed by NHS Lothian.^[1]

Royal Edinburgh Hospital
NHS Lothian
Mackinnon House at the heart of the hospital
Shown in Edinburgh
Geography
Location	Edinburgh, Scotland.
Coordinates	55.9274°N 3.2155°W / 55.9274; -3.2155
Organisation
Type	Psychiatric hospital
History
Opened	1809
Links
Website	www.nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk/GoingToHospital/Locations/REH/Pages/default.aspx
Other links	List of hospitals in Scotland

History

The "foundational myth" has it that the hospital was founded by Dr Andrew Duncan, following the death of Robert Fergusson, a Scottish poet who died in 1774 following mental health problems caused by a head injury.^[2] Duncan wanted to establish a hospital in Edinburgh that would care for the mentally ill of the city and after launching an appeal in 1792 a grant of £2,000 was approved by Parliament in 1806.^[2] A royal charter was granted by King George III in 1807 and the facility was then established as a public body.^[3] A villa in Morningside, along with four acres of land, was then purchased and in 1809 the foundation stone was laid^[4] by Lord Provost William Coulter on 8 June 1809.^[5] The facility was opened as the Edinburgh Lunatic Asylum in 1813.^[6]

The asylum originally consisted of a building called East House which accepted only paying patients, but a second building called West House, designed by William Burn and commissioned to intended to accommodate poorer patients, opened in 1842.^[7] The inmates of Edinburgh's bedlam were later admitted in 1844.^[8]

The asylum's first Physician Superintendent Dr William MacKinnon, who took up the post in 1840,^[9] encouraged patients to be active through skills and hobbies they already possessed, including gardening, pig farming, carpentry, sewing, tailoring, poultry keeping, and curling.^[8][7] Shortly thereafter, in 1845, the asylum installed a printing press and the hospital began to produce a monthly magazine, the Morningside Mirror.^[7] The hospital received royal patronage in 1841 and became the Royal Edinburgh Lunatic Asylum.^[10]

The hospital joined the National Health Service in 1948 and the Andrew Duncan Clinic opened in 1965.^[11] A 15 tonne work known as Abraham was carved in granite by sculptor Ronald Rae in the grounds of the hospital in 1982^[12] and the Rivers Centre, a clinic for the treatment of Posttraumatic stress disorder established in memory of the pioneering psychiatrist William Rivers, opened in 1997.^[13]

A modern hospital on the same site was procured under the Scottish government's non-profit distributing model in January 2015.^[14][15] The first phase of the new hospital was built by Morrison Construction at a cost of £45 million and completed in January 2017.^[16]

Pinel Memorial

Memorial in the grounds of the hospital

The Pinel Memorial was erected in 1926 to commemorate the centenary of the death of Philippe Pinel, a pioneer of psychiatric care. It includes six bronze medallion heads to other principal figures in improving conditions: William Tuke, Florence Nightingale, Robert Gardiner Hill, Andrew Duncan, Dorothea Lynde Dix and Campbell Clark.^[17]

Notable staff

Notable staff have included:

• David Skae was appointed as the Physician Superintendent of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum in 1846, and he held this title until 1872.^[18]
• Sir Thomas Clouston succeeded David Skae as Physician Superintendent in 1873 and remained in post until 1908.^[19][20]
• Sir John Sibbald FRSE was Deputy Commissioner from 1870 to 1879 and as Commissioner from 1879 to 1899.^[20]
• Dr Campbell Clark was assistant to Clouston before leaving to head the newly built Hartwood Hospital.^[21]