The Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women was a hospital located on the corner of Waterloo Bridge Road and Stamford Street near Waterloo station in London, England. Closed in 1981 it is now a dormitory building for the London branch of the University of Notre Dame. History The hospital was founded by Dr John Bunnell Davis in 1816 as the Universal Dispensary for Children. In this first incarnation the hospital was located at St Andrew's Hill, in the now demolished Doctors' Commons in the City of London. The name of the hospital was changed to the Royal Universal Dispensary for Children in 1821 and, after a foundation stone was laid by the Duke of York for new premises near Waterloo Bridge in 1823, it moved into the new premises in 1824. It became the Royal Universal Infirmary for Children in 1824, the Royal Infirmary for Children in 1843 and the Royal Infirmary for Children and Women in 1852. In an 1856 review of the hospital system in London, the British Journal of Homeopathy noted the serious shortage of hospital beds for children in London: Again, London possesses but one hospital (Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street), where sick children are received, containing the insignificant number of 30 beds. Paris has a large hospital (Enfants Malades), containing 600 beds for sick children. The Royal Infirmary for Children, Waterloo Bridge Road, is said to be capable, with a few alterations, of containing 80 beds; but we have no reason to suppose that it does yet contain any; and as its funds are stated to be very limited, there seems small hopes of its taking in sick children for the present. The hospital underwent a further name change to the Royal Hospital for Children and Women in 1875. The new hospital was opened by Princess Louise in 1877, with one ward renamed the Louise Ward in her honour. Between 1903 and 1904 premises were built at a cost of £45,000 to house an outpatients' department and inpatient accommodation of 90 beds at the corner of Waterloo Bridge Road and Stamford Street near Waterloo station. By the year of the hospital's rebuilding in 1903 the concerns over bed space remained: an article in the British Medical Journal raised the concern that the Waterloo site left little room for extension. It became the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women at that time.