Liverpool Hospitals - Sir Alfred Jones Memorial

 

Sir Alfred Lewis Jones was born on the 24th of February 1845 in Carmarthen, but the family moved to Liverpool when he was 2 years of age. He subsequently became one of the leading figures in the Elder Dempster firm and played a major part in the shipping and general trade of the West African coast acquiring considerable territorial interests in West Africa and financial interests in many of the companies engaged in opening up and developing that part of the world. Following his death it was found that Sir Alfred Jones, K.C.M.G., who had lived in Aigburth, within the old Garston boundaries, was strongly in favour of a new hospital, and had bequested £10,000 from his estate.The stocks and shares in his residuary estate that had been allocated to a proposed hospital at Garston were subject to a requirement for the building contract to be signed before the 1st of November 1914, failing which these funds would revert to the testator's residuary estate. The Great War Forum states that the new hospital was built on the site of a Smallpox Hospital, parts of which (including the mortuary) survived the building of the Memorial Hospital which was opened in 1915. The Architects were C T Anderson & R S Crawford.

The foundation stone was inscribed (somewhat formally, since Florence was Alfred Jones' niece, albeit the executor's wife) with the words 'This stone was laid by Mrs. O. Harrison Williams on October 15th 1914'. The Liverpool Echo of the 1st of May 1917 noted in the report of the second annual meeting of the governors of the hospital that the hospital was formally opened on February 23, 1916, and within two
hours of the opening the first patient was admitted... the War Office requested that accommodation might be made for military cases, and at a subsequent meeting it was decided to place twenty-three beds at the
disposal of the military authorities. On the 27th of September 1916, the executor, Harry, wrote to his brother, Jack, that 'a really fine place has been erected which does great credit to the Architect... at the moment there are twenty injured soldiers there', and on the 2nd of July 1917 he proposed 'to give to the Trustees of the Hospital stocks of the value of about £3000 with a view to the same being invested and accumulated and applied after the termination of the War to building a new wing which is urgently required' That wing was added in 1931, and it increased the number of beds to 35.

The memorial Garden

The Sir Alfred Jones Memorial Hospital was the first site for a Tropical Disease Unit in the ‘developed’ world. It was demolished in 2009 to make way for a £13.8m new mini hospital, due to open in 2011 and, in tribute, the Sir Alfred Jones Memorial Garden was dedicated. In a fitting tribute, the front entrance to the old hospital was carefully taken down and reassembled to form the focus of the Sir Alfred
Jones Memorial Garden. The new building is now home to the The Village Surgery and the South Liverpool NHS Treatment Walk-In Centre.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2025/08/liverpool-hospitals-alder-hey.html