Hospitals: Mount Vernon Hospital

He donated £200,000 to build the hospital, with the wish that the hospital focused it's treatment on tuberculosis and other chest diseases. This was possibly spurred by his personal connection to the disease, having lost his mother and wife to the condition.

Mount Vernon was opened in 1904 as a sanatorium, as people suffering from TB were not allowed to be treated with other patients. It was also considered a good area for those suffering with these illnesses as it was a place of clean, fresh air. Mount Vernon was internationally recognised as one of the most progressive treatment centres, for their approach to clean air and lots of exercise.

During the Second World War many soldiers passed through the hospital. Thanks to the Royal College of Nursing we are able to get a first hand account from a nurse who was working at Mount Vernon where soldiers from Dunkirk had been evacuated to. Her recording tells us of the shocking wounds the soldiers suffered as well as the strains on the nurses to keep up with the stream of patients:

Thanks to the work of Gray as well as the dedication of the doctors, sisters and nurses at Mount Vernon, the hospital was recognised as an important place for treatment and was rewarded as such. In 1954 they were gifted a Cobalt 60 beam for treating deep seated cancer - the first of it's kind - and again in 1973 they received funding for a linear accelerator machine, costing £94,000.By 1928 the number of deaths from cancer had risen significantly, causing concern amongst governors and ministers. It was decided that Mount Vernon would now focus on cancer treatments. This development saw patients coming to Mount Vernon from across the country as well as the British Empire. From 1933 physicist Louis Harold Gray was working at Mount Vernon on the effects of radiation on biological systems, which was important for the development of cancer treatment. His laboratory was a significant part of the history of the hospital and although the Gray Laboratory has moved to Oxford the plaques still remain there today.

In 1967 the Marie Curie Hospital was moved to Mount Vernon and is still a prominent hospital treating patients in a catchment area of two million people with state-of-the-art technology.