Bermondsey Health Centre’s Solarium Court – sunlight treatment was a key feature of the fight against tuberculosis in the inter-war years.
Solarium Court, formerly part of the pioneering Bermondsey Health Centre, has been nominated for a Southwark blue plaque to recognise its contribution to local history particularly in relation to tuberculosis. The ground-breaking work done there owes much to the vision of Ada and Alfred Salter.
Alfred Salter was born in Greenwich in 1873 and had trained as a doctor at Guys. He had become involved in the Bermondsey Settlement in 1898 and met Ada there – she was from Raunds in Northamptonshire. Soon after they set up a general practice in Jamaica Road and moved to Bermondsey. They had a daughter Joyce, who died in 1910 from Scarlet Fever.
Both Alfred and Ada were Christian Socialists and pacifists, Ada became the first woman councillor in London in 1910. She became mayor in 1922 when the Labour Party took control of Bermondsey Council and many of the Salter’s ideas on…
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