They initially called it The Yard Club, when some Swindon railway workers in 1843 contributed a small weekly sum to pay for a community doctor.
The expression from small acorns could hardly be more apt…more than 100 years later the initiative was used as a basis for Britain’s pride and joy, the National Health Service.
Later changing its name to the Sick Fund, it enabled the growing community of New Swindon provided local doctor Stuart Rea – known as The Medical Man – with a regular salary and medicines. They were tough times, with small-pox and tuberculosis rampant as a result of over-crowding and no running water.
The idea of an official, GWR-administered scheme was put to Daniel Gooch, who ran the works, and in 1847 the Great Western Medical Fund Society was formed.
It was a world first, with a penny a week being deducted from every employees’ salary to fund the initiative.
Generations of Swindon railway workers and their families benefited from “cradle to the grave” healthcare, which included a 42-bed hospital.
It was Health Minister Aneurin Bevan’s inspiration for creating the NHS in 1948. As such Swindon can lay a decent claim to being “birthplace of the NHS.”
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