The original premises that the School acquired in 1831 at the Public Dispensary off North Street in Leeds soon proved too restricted and in 1834 the School purchased premises at 1 East Parade. This was an ideal position in relation to the Infirmary, being at the junction with Infirmary Street on which the hospital was then located.
The negotiations for the purchase were largely conducted by Dr Williamson, the President of the School. 1 East Parade was a substantial house with four rooms downstairs, two of which were made into a museum and the other two were used as lecture rooms or by the Curator. Upstairs alterations were made to provide a 25 seat lecture theatre and a chemical laboratory. Two attics were made into a dissecting room, lit by skylights. The Anatomy Act had come into effect in 1832 to regulate the conduct of anatomy teaching and dissection. The house was in a residential street and in deference to the neighbours no outward indications of the purposes to which the house was used was permitted and the students had to use the side door in St Paul's Street.
In 1841 the number of students dissecting was 38, second only to Manchester in size of the provincial schools.
The first trial of ether anaesthesia in Leeds took place in the dissecting room in East Parade in the winter of 1846-7 and was described by a student of the time, Claudius Galen Wheelhouse. Wheelhouse described how within a few days of the students experimenting with the inhalation of ether, patients were being operated upon at the Infirmary using the new technique.
