The Margaret Street Infirmary for Consumption

The Margaret Street Infirmary at 26 Margaret Street, West London, originally a Parish Workhouse, and also used as a Dead House for the Poor, was inaugurated in 1847 as a Tuberculosis Hospital, staffed with homeopaths and allopaths,

1847 - the hospital was founded, for the medical relief of poor persons suffering from consumption and diseases of the chest,

1887 - Edmund Becket Lord Grimthorpe, Chairman of the Governing Body, proposed homeopaths and homeopathic supporters as nominees to the Hospital, and the Board of the Hospital clearly stated that homeopaths were not ineligible, and John Beckett, John Roberson Day, Kenneth William Millican, and Charles Lloyd Tuckey, were duly appointed,

1887 - The Margaret Street Infirmary was in the nature of a Dispensary, with an arrangement whereby the physicians visited patients in their own homes.

1887 - The British Medical Journal reported that the Medical Staff of the hospital had resigned in protest at a Resolution of the Board to allow homeopaths to ’take and hold office’ at the hospital, a complete victory for homeopathy, (7 actually did resign),

1888 - Following the resignation of the outraged medical staff at the Margaret Street Infirmary, and election was held to fill the vacant posts, and homeopaths Apollinaris Victor Jagielski and J Marsh (on the staff at the London Homeopathic Hospital), were appointed shortly therafter ((Anon, Transactions of the … Session of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, Volume 40, (American Institute of Homoeopathy, 1887). Page 129)), by an unrepentant Edmund Becket Lord Grimthorpe.

1908 - The Margaret Street Hospital, or ‘The Infirmary for Consumption’, 26 Margaret Street (Cavendish Square) London W1, was founded in 1847 and known as ‘Margaret Street Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest’ until 1908. The old structure was demolished many years ago and the site is now occupied by a modern office block. The only known photos of the façade of this edifice are in the Margaret Street Hospital 1898 Report, London Metropolitan Archives, Call No. SC/PPS/093/36, p. 27.