Historical perspectives on health

Abstract

The Parkes Museum was founded in 1876 to commemorate the life and work of Edmund Alexander Parkes (1819-1876), who was the first Professor of Military Hygiene at the Army Medical School and one of the pioneers of the public health reforms of the nineteenth century. The Museum was a multi-disciplinary institution which aimed to teach an awareness of public health matters to the general public and members of the building trade, thereby encouraging healthy design of living accommodation. The Sanitary Institute had been founded in the same year and sought to improve public health practice by setting standards for health professionals. The aims of the two organisations were therefore complementary. From 1883 they occupied the same premises in Margaret Street, London, and in 1888 they amalgamated to form a joint organisation known as The Sanitary Institute. Despite a move of location in 1909, the Parkes Museum continued to exist until the mid-1950s when an extensive refurbishment, together with a change of focus from museum to exhibition, led to its reopening in 1961 as the Health Exhibition Centre. It closed in 1971 when The Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, the successor to The Sanitary Institute, moved to new accommodation in Grosvenor Place, London.