Our history

GOSH opened its doors on Valentine's Day 1852 at 49 Great Ormond Street. There were 20 beds and two physicians.

Its founder was Dr Charles West, who was driven by the shockingly high level of infant mortality in London. It was the first hospital in the UK dedicated solely to the treatment of children.

GOSH has always depended on charitable support to help make it extraordinary.

Before becoming part of the NHS in 1948, it was known as a voluntary hospital – running fundraising campaigns for new buildings from the 1850s onwards.

The hospital has been generously supported by many people over the years, including author JM Barrie, who donated the rights of Peter Pan to the hospital in 1929, as well as Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria and Diana Princess of Wales.

GOSH Charity has taken various forms over the hospital’s history.

In the early decades of the NHS, private fundraising was heavily restricted, but GOSH was allowed to continue receiving legacies – including JM Barrie’s copyright gift of the stage and novel versions of Peter Pan.

A shift came in 1982, when the government relaxed restrictions on charitable fundraising by individual hospitals.

To oversee these charitable funds, trustees were appointed. They became known as The Special Trustees for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

Between 1987 and 1989, GOSH Charity ran the hugely successful national Wishing Well Appeal, raising £54 million to fund a new main clinical building: the Variety Club Building.

Another change came in August 1998, when the Special Trustees adopted the working name Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. The Trustees remained distinct from GOSH but within the umbrella of the NHS and with close links to the Hospital.

It was in April 2015 that GOSH Charity became an independent charity, separate from the NHS and governed by its own Board of Trustees. This is the organisation that continues to support GOSH today.

Now, while the NHS funds the day-to-day running of GOSH, GOSH Charity – together with its supporters – helps the hospital go above and beyond for seriously ill children.

If you want more information about the history of the charity, get in touch at supporter.care@gosh.org

Today, GOSH is one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals.

It’s home to vital advances in children’s medicine and care, the impact of which can be felt across the UK and around the globe.

This is in part thanks to the work of GOSH Charity and its incredible supporters.

For more than 170 years, GOSH has remained at the forefront of paediatric medicine, driving progress through innovation, collaboration, and an unwavering commitment to improving children’s health.

• 1928 – GOSH appoints Denis Browne, the UK’s first Consultant Paediatric Surgeon.

• 1934 – GOSH was the first hospital in the UK to obtain the Drinker Respirator (also known as an ‘iron lung’) to treat polio. This device helped to expand children’s lungs, allowing them to breathe and providing an alternative to frequent surgery. It was subsequently loaned out to other hospitals.

• 1950s – The GOSH Thoracic Unit is established, the UK’s first joint medical and surgical ward devoted to diagnosis and treatment of children with chest and heart diseases.

• 1959 – The UK’s first children’s neuroscience unit is established at GOSH, delivering life-saving surgical care to children with conditions affecting the brain.

• 1962 – GOSH pioneers the first heart and lung bypass machine for children to help repair heart problems. By 1967, 60% of infants with severe heart and lung problems were surviving.

• 1977 – GOSH obtains the UK’s first paediatric CT scanner, thanks to fundraising efforts from individuals including Sir Billy Butlin.

• 1979 – GOSH immunologist Professor Roland Levinsky carries out the UK’s first successful bone marrow transplant on a child. This marks the beginning of a new era of medicine, using the living agents of the body’s own immune system to combat previously incurable diseases.

• 1988 – Thanks to a £200,000 fundraising appeal, Professor Marc de Leval sets up the transplant unit at GOSH. Today the programme is one of the largest in the world, performing around 20 heart and lung transplants a year.

• 2001 – GOSH immunologists Professor Bobby Gaspar and Professor Adrian Thrasher spark a groundbreaking programme of research into gene therapy. The team began the world’s second-ever successful trial of gene therapy for any disease.

• 2012 - GOSH opens the Newlife Birth Defects Research Centre, Europe’s first research centre to tackle birth defects, funded through generous donations to GOSH Charity as part of the Bringing Research to Life campaign.

• 2018 – A team of surgeons from GOSH and University College London Hospital conduct the UK’s first surgeries in the womb for babies with spina bifida. Funding from GOSH Charity helped the surgeons bring this pioneering technique to patients in the UK.

• 2019 - The Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children opens its doors, thanks to funding from GOSH Charity. The centre brings together pioneering research and world-leading clinical care and is the first centre of its kind in Europe.

• 2020 - GOSH Charity launches a new rapid-response research funding call for projects focused on managing COVID-19. These projects range from investigating virus transmission to how the mental health and wellbeing of children has been affected during the crisis.

• 2021 – Thanks to the help of incredible GOSH Charity supporters, the Sight and Sound Centre welcomes its first patients, as the UK’s first dedicated facility for children with sight and hearing loss.

• 2022 – In a world first, researchers at GOSH and the ICH used genetically modified cells – created using a new technique called base editing – to treat a patient with previously incurable leukaemia. Early funding from GOSH Charity helped pave the way for this research.

• 2023 – In a new partnership with Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, GOSH Charity funds a pilot programme where world-class athletes mentor children and young people at GOSH to build confidence, resilience and self-esteem.

• 2024 – A pioneering phase I clinical trial for children with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia begins at GOSH, funded by GOSH Charity. This is the first time that a paediatric trial is running alongside an adult’s clinical trial.