In 1765, a committee for a proposed hospital, formed by John Ash and supported by Sir Lister Holte, 5th Baronet, the Earl of Bradford, Samuel Garbett, Sir Henry Gough, Charles Adderley, Matthew Boulton, John Baskerville, Sampson Lloyd and others,[1] purchased: all those four closes, pieces, or parcels of Land, Meadow, or Pasture Ground, situate, lying, and being together near a place called the Salutation, in Birmingham aforesaid, containing, by estimation, eight Acres or thereabouts, be the same more or less, adjoining at the upper end or part thereof into a Lane there called Summer Lane, and at the lower end or part thereof unto a way called Walmore Lanefrom a Mrs Dolphin, for £120 per acre.

[1] It is now occupied by Centro House, headquarters of the Transport for West Midlands, where there is a blue plaque (at 52°29′15″N 1°53′59″W / 52.487475°N 1.899811°W / 52.487475; -1.899811) commemorating the hospital.

[7] The hospital relocated to Steelhouse Lane in 1897,[1][5] on a site formerly occupied by almshouses provided by Lench's Trust.

[11] The Birmingham pub bombings, the worst terrorist attack on the mainland until 2005, occurred within a mile of the hospital, on 21 November 1974.

Taxi cabs and all available ambulances ferried victims to either the General or to the nearby Accident Hospital.