About the charity
Our vision
Our vision is for everyone served by the Royal Free London to have access to world-leading healthcare, delivered by a thriving workforce and driven by medical research that has a global impact.
Our history
In 1828 a young surgeon, William Marsden, found a girl dying on the steps of a church and couldn’t get a hospital to admit her. Shocked, he gathered around him a group of philanthropists and founded what became the Royal Free Hospital, now one of three hospitals in the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Now, as then, charitable donations and legacies are a lynchpin of support and are managed by the Royal Free Charity to support all areas of the trust’s work.
