The foundation stone was laid by Joseph Butler, the Bishop of Durham, on 5 September 1751, following the proposals of Richard Lambert.

[5][6] A new hospital to be known as the Royal Victoria Infirmary was designed by William Lister Newcomb and Percy Adams and built on 10 acres (4 hectares) of Town Moor given by the Corporation and Freemen of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne.

[5] The fully furnished and equipped hospital, containing seventeen wards,[7] a nurses' home, chapel and five operating theatres, cost over £300,000.

[8] The infirmary became a unit of the First Northern General Hospital and treated wounded service personnel during the First World War.

[10] Overcrowding was a problem, with waiting lists of over 5,000 in the 1930s and, until it joined the National Health Service in 1948, money had to be raised for extensions and new equipment – always difficult especially in the depression years.