[1] The hospital developed from an infirmary created for the Greenwich and Deptford workhouse, which opened in 1840 on a site on the east side of Vanbrugh Hill, south of its junction with Woolwich Road; the architect, Robert Palmer Browne (1803-1872), later described his design as "plain but cheerful and almslike".

[2] The Greenwich Union Infirmary opened in 1874,[1] consisting of two 3-storey pavilions (housing 400 patients) and a 4-storey administration and staff accommodation block, built on a 3-acre site south of the workhouse at a cost of £35,000.

[5] In 1930 a ward for tuberculosis patients, an out-patients department, pharmacy, antenatal clinic and nurses' sick bay facility were added.

[4] In 1934, while working at St Alfege's, Mary Broadfoot Walker first demonstrated the effectiveness of physostigmine in the treatment of the condition myasthenia gravis.

In 1960 the Board ended the distinction between the workhouse and infirmary elements of the two St Alfege's Hospitals and merged them into one unit of 605 beds.