Provident Surgical Appliance Society: 26th anniversary festival dinner. Photograph by Fradelle & Young, 1898.

The Society was founded in 1872 by J. P. Caesar, formerly of the Provident Dispensary in Islington, who had become convinced of the need for an institution which supplied medical appliances to the poor cheaply (London Mirror, 21 December 1872). It was described in 1878 as a "very useful charitable institution", "which provides the working classes and persons of small means with trusses, elastic stockings, &c" (Edward Walford, Old and new London, vol. 4, 1878) . The institution operated on a system of taking whatever payment each patient could afford, with credit extended where necessary, and benefactors’ tickets were sold to support the poorest in need (London Mirror, 21 December 1872). It was wound up in 1948 (information from the website of the UCL Bloomsbury project, 2012)