Sir Alfred Herbert and the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital

The last meeting of the Governors of the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital held on 1st July 1956, before it was handed over to the National Health Service. Sir Alfred is standing, in the middle, with his characteristic cigarette.

Sir Alfred Herbert was for years chairman of the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital, first (as Mr Alfred Herbert) from 1903 to 1906 and 1909 to 1911. When his second term ended in 1911, Sir Edward Iliffe, the then chairman and the Committee presented him with an illuminated inscription in appreciation for his work, covered in red leather and signed by all the hospital staff. He was President of the hospital for 1924-1925 and continued to take the chairmanship for many years thereafter. His second wife, Florence Lucas (nee Pepper), was a matron at the hospital.


Among his many gifts were £1000 in 1914 to equip a ward in the hospital for wounded soldiers, and £20,000 in 1941 for its reconstruction after the bombing of November 1940.

In 1938 a centenary review of the hospital was published, various photos from which can be seen here.

In 1939, on the 50th anniversary of the founding of Alfred Herbert Ltd, the employees and directors of the firm presented the hospital with £500 for the purchase of new equipment for the Alfred Herbert Ward in the newly completed extension at the hospital.


The Hospital and Swanswell

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