King Edward VII Sanatorium, Midhurst, Sussex: nurses and medical staff (?) about to dine. Photograph, 1907.

Shows nurses or patients dining?

The King Edward VII Sanatorium at Midhurst, Sussex, opened in 1906 for 100 paying patients with early tuberculous disease. The lavish building was financed by a donation from Sir Ernest Cassel: see S.E. Large, King Edward VII Hospital, Midhurst 1901-1986: the King's sanatorium, Chichester 1986, and Jeremy Taylor, Hospital and asylum architecture in England 1840-1914, London 1991, p. 34. It was criticised by some as badly-sited: one critic said "It was a long way from everywhere, supply and everything was very dear, and the thing that consumptives wanted as much as anyone else - i.e. drinking water - did not exist, and the water had to be brought from a long distance. But they got water where they did not want it, in the form of dense mists ... it had one of the worst climates in England for consumptives" (quoted by Taylor, pp. 24-25). Its lavishness made it notorious as an ineffective model for the mass treatment of tuberculosis in Britain (Taylor, index p. 272)

[Reigate?] : [F. Frith and Co.?], 1907.

1 photograph : photoprint, albumen ; sheet 14 x 20.4 cm

Midhurst King Edward Sanatorium Dining Hall Kent 1907

S.E. Large, King Edward VII Hospital Midhurst 1901-1986, Chichester 1986, pl. 7 ("Patients at luncheon in the dining hall")

Wellcome Collection 38499i