Leaps of Consciousness

The Peckham Experiment, which ran from 1935 to 1947, took a holistic approach to promoting good health and preventing disease. It combined preventative fitness and health with medical advice to prevent illness.

It was ‘Designed as a family club where the whole family can come after a day’s work,’ - from the 1948 film by Paul Rotha. Members of the club paid 6d a week.

Peckham had a gym, swimming pool, badminton courts, dancing lessons, a nursery and a crèche. It grew its own food on its farm in Kent. This is against a 1930s backdrop of depression and social unrest.

Unfortunately, this and similar experiments rarely outlive their founders. The new (in 1950) National Health Service refused to fund it following a strong desire to centralise and regulate health provision in post-war Britain. The Experiment finally closed its doors in 1950.

Does the National Health Service have little to do with prevention, than provide diagnosis and treatment when things have gone wrong? Could the NHS have been a ‘for profit’ operation from the outset, knowing funding prevention would deprive it of future ‘customers’?