1902: Coronation Appeal for King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London

A reproduction of a poster for the King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London. The poster is in black and white. On it are painted adults and children holding up coins and queueing to put their coins in a dish. The dish is guarded by a policeman pointing to the dish, and an angel. The text reads ‘Coronation Gift to the King, King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London’. In the middle of the poster, names have been handwritten with an amount of money (indicative of how much they have donated) written next to each name.
1902 appeal for donations to the King’s Fund. Image courtesy of The King’s Fund under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

The Prince Edward’s Hospital Fund for London was established in 1897 upon the request of then Prince Edward (later King Edward VII). It was established to fundraise for and financially contribute to the voluntary hospitals of London. A voluntary hospital was a hospital established by charity or voluntary effort (rather than, for example, a local authority). At the time, such hospitals received no core funding from the government and were reliant to a large extent on charity fundraising to provide their services.

The Fund’s name was changed to King Edward’s Hospital Fund in 1902 after Edward ascended the throne. The Fund ran a special appeal to mark the King’s coronation: members of the public were invited to donate to the Fund as a “coronation gift to the King”.

Over time, the Fund expanded its activities to also inspect hospitals, advise hospitals on how to acquire more funds, and represent London’s voluntary hospitals in policy debates. After the NHS was founded in 1948, the Fund became a think tank.