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St Thomas's Hospital has its origins in a small infirmary attached to the Augustinian Priory of St Mary the Virgin (St Mary Overie), which was destroyed by fire in 1212. The infirmary assumed the name of St Thomas the Martyr shortly after his canonization in 1173. After its destruction by fire the hospital was re-endowed by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, as a separate foundation independent of the Priory and administered by its own Master. It was built at the south end of London Bridge on a site occupied by the hospital from 1215 to 1862. In the early fifteenth century a new ward of eight beds was paid for by the Lord Mayor, Richard ('Dick') Whittington.

During the Reformation in 1540 the hospital, along with many other religious foundations, was dispossessed of its revenues and closed. The abolition of the religious houses deprived the poor of their chief source of relief, and the citizens of London presented a petition to Henry VIII. The King died before his intention to restore the hospital was carried out, and it was his son Edward VI who restored St Thomas's estates and revenues. The hospital re-opened with 120 beds and three Barber Surgeons, assisted by apprentices, were appointed, possibly marking the beginning of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. A royal charter of 1553 made the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of London perpetual Governors of King's Hospital, as it was known for a time before becoming St Thomas's Hospital.

The hospital underwent an extensive building programme between 1693 and 1709, and about 300 beds were provided. Medical education was also formalised at this time, with regulations introduced to control the entry of pupils into the hospital. Students were educated on the wards long before this time. A record of one of the apprentices of a surgeon at St Thomas's appears in 1561. By the second half of the seventeenth century surgeons at the hospital were accepting the apprentices of other surgeons for short periods of tuition within the hospital. These students were the forerunners of dressers, and problems with their discipline and uncertainty over their status led to the formulation of some basic regulations to control the entry of students into the hospital. Surgeons were restricted to taking three dressers each, but this was frequently broken, and the number increased to four. The physicians at the hospital had some pupils, though a fewer number than the surgeons. From about the early 18th century the Hospital Apothecary also apprenticed pupils. Guy's Hospital opened in the grounds of St Thomas's in 1725, and lectures, wards and operations were attended by the students of both hospitals. In 1768 the arrangement was formalised and continued until Guy's established its own medical school in 1825.

Until the mid nineteenth century there were three types of student attending the medical school, the surgeons' apprentices and dressers, dressers who had served an apprenticeship elsewhere and completing their training with a particular surgeon, and pupils, who were not attached to any particular surgeon. Pupils first appeared in 1723, and tended to be on the periphery of surgical procedures. Their numbers were unrestricted and they paid smaller fees than dressers. All students were able to attend the courses of lectures provided by the teaching staff at the hospitals and dissection classes. The study of anatomy was the most prestigious course offered at St Thomas's. William Cheseldon, one of the most important and influential anatomists of the eighteenth century, was surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital from 1719 to 1738 and gave lectures from 1714. Other influential medical teachers included George Fordyce, who was Physician from 1770 to 1802, Henry Cline, Surgeon, from 1784 to 1812 and Sir Astley Paston Cooper, lecturer from 1797 to 1825. New accommodation for dissection classes was provided in 1814, and allowed up two hundred students at a time to practice dissection. Other courses offered to students after the unification of the medical schools included chemistry, materia medica, physiology and midwifery. A broadly based syllabus of medical lectures was delivered by William Saunders, Physician at Guy's Hospital, from about 1770. Students were also able to attend courses offered by the recognised private schools of medicine, notably the Windmill Street school, run by Samuel Sharp and later William and John Hunter, Joshua Brookes' Theatre of Anatomy in Blenheim Street and the Webb Street School of Anatomy and Medicine.

The popularity and influence of the medical schools led to the building of new facilities at St Thomas's Hospital. New accommodation was opened in 1814, and comprised a museum, laboratory, library, dissection room and large lecture theatre. A dispute over the appointment of the successor to the Surgeon Astley Cooper led to Guy's Hospital establishing its own medical school in 1825. St Thomas's lost several lecturers, and the popularity of Astley Cooper at Guy's and the establishment of new teaching hospitals in London such as King's College led to a period of decline for St Thomas's medical school. The school continued to offer lectures on a wide variety of subjects and provide regular clinical training, but falling student rolls and therefore income from fees hampered long term development and planning. After 1825 students of surgeons continued to attend operations at both hospitals, until a disagreement amongst the students in 1836 sparked off a riot in the operating theatre at St Thomas's and the arrangement ended. In 1842 the Hospital Governors stepped in to rationalise and improve the status of the medical school, and took over the management for the next sixteen years. A medical school fund was established and administered by the Hospital Treasurer to pay for the general running costs of the school, including the salaries of the non-teaching staff. A Medical School Committee was created to govern the school, appoint lecturers and oversee expenditure. The first Dean, Dr Henry Burton, was appointed in 1849. In 1858, management of the school was restored to the physicians and surgeons and in 1860 to the teaching staff, as the school had become self-financing.

In 1866 the extension of the railway from London Bridge to Charing Cross forced the Hospital to move to a temporary site at Newington. A site at Stangate in Lambeth, at the foot of Westminster Bridge, was bought from the Metropolitan Board of Works for ?95,000. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone of the new building in 1868, which was also opened by her in 1871. The new building was designed by Henry Currey to take 588 beds. The plan was supported by Florence Nightingale, who had chosen St Thomas's as the hospital in which to found her training school for nurses. The new accommodation and new teaching staff, including Charles Murchison, Physician to the hospital from 1871 to 1879, heralded a good start for the new medical school. However, by 1892 most of the teaching staff had left and the new student intake was only forty-three. The enlargement of facilities at the school helped revive the school's reputation, and by 1900 student numbers were improving and increased rapidly.

St Thomas's Hospital and Medical School were seriously disrupted by the second world war. The hospital's status as a casualty clearance station, with sixteen wards closed and a limited out-patients' service meant that clinical teaching was impossible. Students were dispersed among other London hospitals and the pre-clinical school went to Wadham College, Cambridge. By March 1940 the anticipated aerial bombing had not taken place, and the medical school had reformed, the out-patients' service resumed and 250 civilian beds opened at Lambeth. However bombing raids in the Autumn severely damaged the hospital. Arrangements were made to move staff and patients to a hutted hospital at Hydestile, near Godalming, which had previously been occupied by Australian troops. By 1943 St Thomas's Hospital comprised 184 beds at the London site, 334 in Hydesville and 50 maternity beds in Woking. By the end of the war four ward buildings, three operating theatres, most accommodation for nurses and a large section of the out-patients department had been destroyed.

With the establishment of the National Health Service the medical school became a separate corporate body in 1948 and one of the general medical schools of the University of London. In 1949 the school accepted its first female medical student. The annual intake of students continued to increase throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Since the end of the second world war to the 1970s there has been almost continuous redevelopment of the site. In 1982 the medical schools of Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals reunited as the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals (UMDS). The new institution was then enlarged by the amalgamation of the Royal Dental Hospital of London School of Dental Surgery with Guy's Dental School on 1 August 1983 and the addition on the Institute of Dermatology on 1 August 1985. In 1990 King's College London began discussions with the United Schools and, following formal agreement to merge in 1992 and the King's College London Act 1997, the formal merger with UMDS took place on 1 August 1998. The merger created three new schools: the Guy's, King's and St Thomas' Schools of Medicine, of Dentistry and of Biomedical Sciences, and reconfigured part of the former School of Life, Basic Medical & Health Sciences as the new School of Health & Life Sciences.

St Thomas's Hospital had its beginnings in the Priory of St Mary Overie, [1200], situated in Southwark. In 1212 the building was destroyed by fire, and was rebuilt as St Thomas's Hospital in 1215, dedicated to St Thomas à Becket. Until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, the Hospital of St Thomas the Martyr was an independent Augustinian House devoted to the care and cure of the sick poor. In 1540 the Hospital was closed and revenues forfeited. King Edward VI restored the Hospital in 1551, which was then known as the Hospital of King Edward VI and of St Thomas the Apostle, as Thomas à Becket, who had been canonized by Pope Alexander III, had by then been decanonized. The Hospital was rebuilt again in 1693. A piece of ground was rented from St Thomas's by Thomas Guy, and in 1722 he built a new Hospital, now known as Guy's. In this manner the 'United Hospitals' of St Thomas's and Guy's came about, and the partnership existed from 1768 to 1825. The split between St Thomas's and Guy's occurred in 1825. The Nightingale School of Nursing, founded by Florence Nightingale, opened at St Thomas's Hospital in 1860. In 1919 the Nightingale School and the St John School merged, at first known as the Nursing Association of St John and St Thomas, until the two institutions rapidly integrated and identity was lost. In 1948 St Thomas's Hospital was managed by London Regional Hospital Board (Teaching), acting through a Hospital Management Committee. In 1974 St Thomas's District Health Authority (Teaching) was formed, under the Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham Area Health Authority (Teaching) which in 1982 became West Lambeth District Health Authority, and from 1993 became Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital National Health Service Trust. In 1993 the Nightingale School of Nursing of St Thomas's Hospital and Guy's Hospital, and Normanby College, combined to form the Nightingale Institute. The United Medical and Dental School (UMDS) of Guy's and St Thomas's merged with King's College London in 1998, leading to the Department of Nursing Studies at King's being amalgamated with the Nightingale Institute, with a consequent name change to the Florence Nightingale Division of Nursing and Midwifery. In 1999 the Division became the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery.

Stagg trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital 1924-1927, gaining General Nursing Council registration in 1928. She was also Nurse Tutor at King's College Hospital.

Born in 1898; educated at Dudley Grammar School, London Hospital and Mayo Clinic, USA; served with Royal Garrison Artillery, 1916-1918; studied medicine at Birmingham University and the London Hospital; Resident Medical Officer, Birmingham Children's Hospital, then Resident Surgical Officer, Birmingham General Hospital; studied neurosurgery at the Mayo Clinic, USA, 1929; appointed to the consultant staff of Children's Hospital and General Hospital, Birmingham; surgical specialist, then Officer Commanding Surgical Division, Royal Army Medical Corps, West Africa, 1939-1942; Consultant in Surgery to the Army, Western Command, North Africa, Italy and Austria, 1942-1945; Professor of Surgery, University of Birmingham, 1946-1963; died in 1982.

Biographical history: Born 1894; educated at Rugby and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; commissioned into Royal Artillery, 1914; served in World War One, on Western Front, 1914-1918; Lt, 1915; awarded MC, 1915; Capt, 1917; Adjutant, 1917; acting Maj, 1917-1919; service in Iraq, 1919-1920; served on North West Frontier, India, 1930-1931; Maj, 1933; Instructor, School of Artillery, India, 1935-1938; served in World War Two in France, North Africa, and the War Office, 1939-1945; temporary Lt Col, 1939-1940; Lt Col, 1940; acting Col, 1940-1941; temporary Brig, 1941; Commanded Support Group, 8 Armoured Div, Middle East, 1941-1942; retired 1946; awarded CBE, 1946; died 1957.

Born 1928; joined Army 1946; attended Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 1947-1948; 2 Lieutenant, Suffolk Regiment, 1948; served in Middle East and Far East, including Malaya, 1950; School of Infantry, Hythe, 1950; Lieutenant, 1950; Captain, 1 East Anglian Regiment (Royal Norfolk and Suffolk), 1954; temporary Major, 1959; transferred to Parachute Regiment as Major, 1961; served in Cyprus, 1966; Aden (Yemen), 1967; and Northern Ireland; Lieutenant Colonel, 1968; Regimental Colonel, 1972; served on Staff of Gen Alexander Haig, Supreme Commander Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE); Deputy Commander, South West District, 1978-1981; retired 1982; Secretary, Western Wessex Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Association, 1982-1987; died 1996.

Publications: Soldier On! The Testament of a Tom , (Kent: Spellmount Ltd., 1992)

Born in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, son of builder William Steevens, 1906; educated at Royal Grammar School, High Wycombe, 1917-1923; Regent Street Polytechnic School of Architecture, 1923-1926; awarded Intermediate Certificates of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), 1926; qualified for membership of the Royal Institute of Sanitary Engineers (later the Royal Society of Health), 1927; studied town planning; assistant, Works Department, Bush House Ltd, and draughtsman for US architectural firm Helme Corbett & Harrison, c 1927; Clerk of Works and Department Manager, Bush House West Wing extension, 1927-1928; senior assistant, Department of Overseas Trade, c 1929; assistant, London County Council Construction Department (Hospitals), c 1930; Clerk of Works for underpinning work on the Press Association building, Fleet Street, c 1931; elected Associate Architect, Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors, 1931; became a partner in his family’s building business, W A Steevens & Son Ltd, High Wycombe, 1931; as Steevens & Partners Ltd worked on Ministry of Defence contracts on aerodromes, factories and power supply lines, World War Two; leader, Wycombe Group of Builders for bomb-damage repair work in Hayes and Lewisham; Steevens & Partners Ltd resumed peace-time building and renovation work, postwar; retired, 1969; Chairman, Building and Environment Group, Royal Society of Health, c 1970; died, 1973.

Born 1914; read Engineering at Cambridge University; emergency commission as 2 Lieutenant, African Colonial Forces, 1941; Lieutenant, Royal Corps of Signals, Regular Army Reserve of Officers, 1952; transferred to Royal Engineers; retired as Lieutenant Colonel, 1956; worked as chemical engineer, petroleum industry; died 2003.

Born 1875; Scots Greys, 1894-1898; 2nd Lt Royal Fusiliers, 1898; Capt, 1904; Major, 1915; Bt Lt-Col, 1917; Lt-Col, 1924; Col, 1928; served Ashanti, 1900; World War One, 1914-1919 (Adjt, 8 Durham Light Infantry, 1915; Cdr, 6 Durham Light Infantry, 1915-1916; Cdr, 2 Royal Fusiliers, 1916-1917; Cdr, 90 Infantry Bde, 1917-1919); operations, Waziristan, 1920; Commanded 2 Bt, Royal Fusiliers, 1924-1928; Instructor, Senior Officers' School, Sheerness, 1928-1930; Inspector-General of West Indian Local Force and Officer Commanding the troops, Jamaica, 1930-1932; retired, 1932; died 1951.