[7] The historic Portsmouth Naval Hospital building was designed by architect John Haviland (1792–1852) and built in 1827.

The front facade features a 92 feet (28 m) wide Doric order portico with ten columns.

[9]In 1798, Congress established the “Hospital Fund” to provide medical treatment that formerly had been administered to officers, sailors and marines ashore in sail lofts, storerooms or other work spaces at Gosport Shipyard.

On January 2, 1832, in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Commodore Lewis Warrington confirmed enslaved labor at the hospital.

"[10] In a January 5, 1832, followup Warrington clarified that the hospital's female enslaved workers and their children had separate sleeping quarters.

"[In] assigning reasons for the employment of Washers [laundresses] at the Hospital, I omitted to state that they were fixed in an outhouse at a considerable distance from the establishment and had no intercourse with it, but such as was allowed by the medical officer, consequently neither they nor their children could occasion any inconvenience or produce any irregularity.

Two months later, with 20 to 70 citizens a day being stricken, representatives of Portsmouth appealed to the Navy to help treat townspeople.

The first Navy Corps School graduation took place at Portsmouth Naval Hospital in 1902 when 28 students completed the course.

The outstanding lifesaving record of the corps while caring for the sick and wounded during battle and peacetime has made it one of the most decorated among the military services.

Congress created the Navy Nurse Corps in 1908, allowing women to perform duties that previously had been done by men.

On April 20, the Governor ordered the 3rd Virginia regiment to occupy and fortify the Naval Hospital grounds.

Solace transported fifty five sick U.S. Navy and forty eight wounded Spanish sailors to the hospital.

After the war, the Spanish Navy praised Portsmouth Naval Hospital for the compassion and humanitarian acts of kindness extended to them and their countrymen.

In 1907, hospital personnel moved patients to tent-covered wooden platforms constructed several hundred yards from the building.

In addition to wartime casualties, the naval hospital also treated large numbers of patients due to the great influenza pandemic of 1918.

In the Fall of 1918 the influenza pandemic quickly devastated the Naval Training Station at Hampton Roads Virginia where it arrived on September 13, 1918.

Among these were two members of the United States Navy Nurse Corps stationed at Norfolk Naval Hospital they were Hortense Elizabeth Wind USNR (1891 -1918) see thumbnail and Ann Marie Dahlby USNR (1892 -1918) both died after contacting the disease at the hospital, while treating ailing and dying sailors.

In 1973, twelve American prisoners of war from Vietnam were received on the 12th floor, where they were reunited with family and given time to recuperate.

The center is named for Master Chief Corpsman William R. Charette, who served with the 1st Marine Division during the Korean Conflict.