For much of the past thousand years or so Oxford’s public health and welfare policy has consisted largely of the better off — particularly members of the University — making themselves scarce in times of pestilence and, whenever possible, shifting the poor and infirm into someone else’s parish.

Until 1771, the city was composed of 11 parishes, each with its own Board of Guardians and workhouse. Parishioners ‘belonged’ to their parish, and were expected to show loyalty to it, in a way that is difficult to comprehend now — and paupers were ‘thrown on’ their parish for their maintenance.

There was already a hospital for lepers in Cowley — St Bartholomew’s — in the 12th century. It was founded by Henry I in 1126-8 and had 12 brethren working under one chaplain, who also officiated at the nearby chapel. In 1327, Edward III gave St Bartholmew’s to Oriel College as a rural retreat for scholars so that they might “use the wholesome air in times of pestilential sickness”. In 1536, it became an almshouse and in 1770 (more than 100 years after it suffered severe damage in the Civil War) it was incorporated into Oxford City Charities.

Most early histories of Oxford deal with frequent epidemics of smallpox, plague, typhus, and other infectious diseases — during many of which the University would close and the fellows would flee into the surrounding countryside. But in 1771, the United Board of Guardians was set up and immediately built a workhouse (House of Industry) in what is now Wellington Square but was then called Rats and Mice Hill after a heap of rubbish there, mentioned by 17th-century historian Anthony Wood, and much infested by such creatures.

The two-storey stone workhouse was originally home for 200 paupers, but in 1790 a nursery and a ward for elderly and infirm people were added. By 1861, or 100 years after its foundation, the workhouse was overflowing and a new one was built by order of the Oxford Poor Law Board for 330 paupers in Cowley Road. It opened in 1865 and became known as the Cowley Road Hospital.

It was built on an 11-acre site bought from Magdalen and Pembroke colleges and comprised three parallel blocks designed by Oxford architect William Fisher, the middle one of which boasted a 90ft tower complete with a weathervane and housed the master and matron. An infirmary, fever wards and a chapel were added soon after it opened.

The Radcliffe Infirmary had opened in 1770, and the Oxford Medical Dispensary and Lying-in Charity a few years later, but they were for paying patients, or people who had managed to obtain vouchers from subscribers to the charities.

Inmates at the Cowley Road Hospital were classified according to age and sex; infirm and able-bodied. There were also primitive maternity wards, and casual dormitories for tramps and vagrants.

During the First World War, the workhouse became the Cowley Section of the Third Southern General Hospital — which had its HQ in the Oxford University Examination Schools — and was used by wounded servicemen.

Following the 1929 Local Government Act, it was reclassified as a Public Assistance Institution. During the Second World War part of it was used as an Emergency Medical Services Hospital, even though there were still 220 old people living there and 15 maternity beds.

With the birth of the National Health Service, the Public Assistance Authority transferred its ownership to United Oxford Hospitals.

In 1958, its director, the pioneering Dr Lionel Cosin, succeeded in reducing the average stay there from a year to 35 days. This was achieved by establishing a halfway house and a day hospital in the grounds, the first institutions of their kind in the country.

The Encyclopaedia of Oxford by Christopher Hibbert (Macmillan 1988) notes that despite its workhouse origins “considerable regret accompanied its closure in 1981 and subsequent demolition”.