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.