Bighi hospital

Abstract

For a time, after the British occupation of Malta, the Island's inclusion within the British Colonial Empire was formally ratified by the Council in 1814, after Napoleon's first abdication and confirmed by the Congress of Vienna the following year. The ancient creek "the harbour of the galleys" between Senglea and Vittoriosa, across whose mouth, it will be remembered, a giant chain had been stretched to protect the little navy of the Knights from the Barbary Corsairs, became the Admiralty Dockyard employing thousands of men. There was not yet a naval hospital to accommodate the servicemen and civilian employees who were employed in the naval yard at the time. The well renowned Maltese doctor and writer, Sir Temistocle Zammit who was also occupying the appointment of Rector of the University and was the first Curator of the Maltese National Museum, in his book History of Malta, said literally that "the battle of Navarrino showed the importance that in Malta there must be a well-suited naval hospital." Most of the wounded who were conveyed to the Island on British warships were thus confined to Fort Ricasoli. Such a place was not comfortable for the wounded after all, so the authorities of the Royal Navy finally decided, something which they could never understand before, that there existed the need of constructing a naval hospital.