Improving the health of Wrexham's residents in the 19th Century was the town's greatest challenge. Open drains, stinking middens and belching gas plants were all hazards to health. The Inspector from the Board of Health in 1849 stated "...the cesspools and the cottage pigstyes are among the chief evils of Wrexham."

George Cunliffe, the vicar of Wrexham, and his Sanitary Committee campaigned for change. From the 1860s the Corporation and the Wrexham Water Co. brought clean water and proper sewerage to the town. As a result the town's death rate was halved by 1900.

In 1833 Thomas Taylor Griffiths, physician and philanthropist, opened Wrexham's first dispensary on Yorke Street. Fundraising soon started for a purpose-built hospital. The Wrexham Infirmary, now the Art College, opened in 1839. A combination of working men's subscriptions, wealthy patrons and charity events paid for an operating theatre in 1862 and a fever ward in 1866.

In 1918 the people of Wrexham decided to commemorate those killed in the First World War by building the Wrexham & East Denbighshire War Memorial Hospital, now Yale College. Their fundraising tradition continues to this day.

Part 7