The School was founded in 1899 by Sir Patrick Manson as the London School of Tropical Medicine and located in the London Docks. In 1920 the School moved, with the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, to Endsleigh Gardens in central London, taking over a former hotel which had been used as a hospital for officers during the First World War. In 1921 the Athlone Committee recommended the creation of an institute of state medicine, which built on a proposal by the Rockefeller Foundation to develop a London-based institution that would lead the world in the promotion of public health and tropical medicine. This enlarged School, now named the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, was granted its Royal Charter in 1924.
Keppel Street
Keppel Street was part of the Duke of Bedford’s Bloomsbury estate and previously contained 40 Georgian houses (when it originally ran to Russell Square) and another 42 in Keppel Mews North (now Malet Street). A well-to-do area in Victorian times, Keppel Street housed several distinguished residents, including the painter John Constable, the novelist Anthony Trollope, and the Irish nationalist politician Charles Steward Parnell. In 1922 the site was acquired for £52,000 from the National Theatre Committee, who had purchased the land in 1913 intending to build a Shakespeare Memorial Theatre for the tercentenary of the playwright’s death in 1916. These plans were shelved at the outbreak of war.
The new building was made possible through a gift of $2m from the Rockefeller Foundation. Architects Morley Horder and Verner Rees won the competition to design the new building.
The Minister for Health, Neville Chamberlain (whose father, Joseph Chamberlain, had been involved in the School’s foundation in 1899) laid the foundation stone for the new building on 7 July 1926. HRH the Prince of Wales officially opened the building on 18 July 1929.
Architecture and design
The Keppel Street building is a steel framed building (one of the first ever erected) with a Portland stone façade designed in the stripped Classical style. A carving of Apollo and Artemis riding a chariot (used as the School’s logo) can be seen above the main entrance. The first floor balconies are decorated with gilded bronze insects and animals involved in transmitting disease. A frieze surrounding the building displays the names of 26 pioneers of public health and tropical medicine between laurel wreaths. Another feature worthy of note is a sculpted panel by Eric Kennington above the entrance to the Library.
The building was designed in the shape of a capital A. Two large open courtyards were originally designed to give air and light to the surrounding rooms. The architects stipulated that the furniture for the Board Room and Library should be to their design and made by a guild of craftsmen. The Keppel Street building was listed as Grade II in the 1980s.
Although the façade of the building has remained unchanged since 1929, there have been several internal transformations and modernisations. The Malet Street wing, in which the author Graham Greene undertook wartime firewatching duties, was damaged by a bomb in 1941 and was not restored until 1951. New floors were added and redeveloped in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The terrazzo main foyer was partially restored in the 1990s.
Improvements in the 21st century
In February 2004 a new building within the North Courtyard was opened by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This seven-storey building is set within a glass atrium and provides office, research and meeting space for over 100 staff, enhancing some of the original inner courtyard.
The South Courtyard development was opened by HRH The Princess Royal in May 2009. This five storey building accommodates state of the art lecture theatres, teaching and research space and social space for staff and students.
Further improvements have been made in recent years, including major upgrades to laboratories and social spaces. In October 2024 the Pumphandle Social opened, transforming the previous refectory and bar area into a welcoming and modern hub for eating, drinking and connecting.
Tavistock Place
15-17 Tavistock Place originally housed the Headquarters of the Express Dairy Company Limited which was built and opened in 1904. The building is believed to have been designed by Charles Fitzroy Doll, architect of the Hotel Russell in Bloomsbury.
In 1940 the building was seriously damaged by a WW II bomb, but fully repaired.
In 1981 the British Transport Police Headquarters moved into the building, leaving in 2005 for a new Headquarters in Camden.
In July 2010, Sir Tim Lankester, Chair of the LSHTM Council, opened a new building for research and teaching a short walk away from Keppel Street at 15-17 Tavistock Place. Originally housing the Faculty of Public Health and Policy, this has now been transformed into a state-of-the-art Education Centre. In January 2026, our students moved to Tavistock Place for the majority of their sessions (while continuing to use Keppel Street for teaching in large lecture theatres and laboratories, as well as our library). The entrance features gilded vectors on the railings in a nod to the iconic Keppel Street façade design.
In August 2023, a brand new building opened at Tavistock Place. Known within LSHTM as TP2, this purpose-built office is set back off the street behind the Education Centre.