Pioneer Health Centre 1935: London modernism

Image by mermaid99
Visited as part of Open House 2009.

In 1935, two doctors opened the Pioneer Health Centre to house the ‘Peckham Experiment’, a unique attempt to improve public health through education, community care and preventative medicine.

Drs Scott Williamson and Innes Pearse, the founders, were responding to worryingly low levels of health and fitness among low-income inner-city families. The husband and wife team believed that social and physical environment could have a direct affect on health and sought to prove it.

Nine hundred and fifty families signed up, paying one shilling a week to relax in a club-like atmosphere where physical exercise, games and workshops were all encouraged. Among the original facilities were a nursery, gymnasium, cafeteria and kitchens (serving food grown at the Centre’s farm near Bromley) and swimming pool.

The families were constantly observed by Williamson and Pearse’s team of doctors and attended thorough annual medical examinations with the emphasis on a preventative, rather than a curative approach to health.

To reflect the pioneering approach to healthcare, the building was designed as an equally bold example of 20th century Modernist architecture.