The House of Recovery
This photograph shows the Fever Hospital (also known as the House of Recovery), Bath Lane, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1995. The building is now used by the North of England Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.
In the nineteenth century, people were increasingly living in crowded slum dwellings which tended to breed disease. New hospitals were developed to help counteract the diseases of the poor. In 1804 the Fever Hospital was set up outside the town walls for the 'infected poor', in practice anyone suffering from diseases such as smallpox, cholera and typhoid. The hospital was overcrowded and many people were turned away, so epidemics such as the cholera crises of 1851 and 1853 were still a real threat. The Fever Hospital closed in 1888.
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