The ghostly history behind Leeds Thackray Medical Museum

It’s the city museum which has enjoyed its fair share of paranormal activity.

Spooky sightings at what was known as Thackray Medical Museum, located next to St James’s Hospital and opposite Beckett Street Cemetery, include a ghost of a woman known as the ‘grey lady’ in 19th century clothing seen waving to staff on the second floor.

And over the years the ghost of a man in a white coat seen by visitors around the recreation of the museum’s Victorian Street.

Alan Humphries, a librarian, told your Yorkshire Evening Post of the paranormal activity around the museum: “I’ve been working here for nearly 20 years and it can be rather spooky late at night – it certainly has an atmosphere.”

The building was originally the Leeds Union Workhouse which opened in 1861 to accommodate 784 paupers and was once hit by a typhus epidemic that killed many people.

By the end of the 19th century, the buildings had become largely used for medical care of the poor, rather than workhouse and training.

During the First World War it was called the East Leeds War Hospital, caring for armed services personnel.

After becoming part of St James's Hospital, the building housed the first geriatric ward in the north of England before closing in the early 1990s.

The building was later known as the Ashley Wing, which was part of the hospital until the 1990s when the old Leeds Union Workhouse building was considered unfit for modern medicine.

As a Grade II listed building,, it could not be demolished and Parliament gave permission for it to house the Thackray Medical Museum, which opened in 1997.

The museum's origins can be traced to Great George Street, Leeds, where Charles Thackray opened a small family-run chemist shop in 1902.

In less than a century the corner shop grew into one of Britain's principal medical companies, Chas F Thackray Limited, manufacturing drugs and medical instruments and pioneering the hip replacement operation alongside Sir John Charnley.

In the 1980s Charles Thackray's grandson Paul Thackray established a small collection as an archive of the Leeds-based medical supplies company. In 1990 a charitable trust was established to develop the collection.

The museum closed temporarily in 2019 for a £4 million refurbishment, while the museum conference centre and car park remained open, and remained closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The museum reopened its doors on May 17, 2021, with a new name - Thackray Museum of Medicine.