Plaque: Chamberlain - LSHTM
Erection date: 7/7/1926
LS
H
TM
This stone was laid by the Minister of Health, the Right Honourable Neville Chamberlain M.P. on 7th July 1926.
{The "LS" and "TM" nestle into the "H". These being the initial letters of the name of the building.}
Neville's father, Joseph, had been involved in the School's foundation in 1899. This foundation stone is on the Keppel Street façade. The building was opened three years later by the Prince of Wales.
Site: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (24 memorials)
WC1, Gower Street, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
This listed building was designed by Vernor Rees in 1926, one of the first steel-framed buildings ever erected. The balconies are decorated with gilded bronze insects and animals involved in transmitting disease - all charming and beautifully photographed at Ornamental Passions where you will also find more info on the building and its decorations. Incorporated into the design is a frieze of 23 names around the top and above the entrances. The LSHTM website has a page about this frieze and the men commemorated - they are all men. The names were selected by a committee which chose to exclude Florence Nightingale (the only woman on the short-list) due to the length of her name, but they found room for Pettenkofer.
Walking anti-clockwise around the building the names read:
On the Gower Street façade, the first 3 being above the entrance:
Pringle
Sydenham
Lind
Gorgas
Laveran
Reed
On the Keppel Street façade:
Ross
Farr
Jenner
Shattuck
Chadwick
Simon
Manson
Lister
Pasteur
Koch
Bruce
On the Malet Street façade, the last 3 being above the entrance:
Parkes
Leishman
Lewis
Frank
Pettenkofer
Biggs
In 1914 this site was fingered for the new National Theatre, but it was not to be. In 2016 we visited an exhibition in this building, about the Shakespeare Hut. The hut was conceived by Israel Gollancz, Professor of English at King’s College and keen promoter of the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre. The site was acquired in 1914 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death by building a National Memorial Theatre.
But the war intervened and prompted the suggestion that the site should instead be used as a YMCA for New Zealand service men, with a stage for entertainments. The Hut was designed in a, for once, highly appropriate Tudorbethan style by W. Charles Waymouth. Opened on 11 August 1916, it was by all reports well-used and very popular. 1920-1924 it was rented for use by the Indian YMCA and this generated funds for the touring New Shakespeare Company. It was then demolished to make way for the LSHTM. See Shakespeare Hut for pictures and more information.
Go to map of other memorials in this area
