Hospital ceramic wall tiles by WB Simpson & Sons

In 1910 Walter Charles Clark of Bournemouth gave a children's' ward to the Royal Victoria Hospital. The walls of the ward were decorated with 16 large tiled pictures made by WB Simpson & Sons of St. Martin's Lane, London.

The ward was opened by Sylvia, Dowager Countess of Malmesbury on 1 May 1911.

Over 70 hospitals in the UK had been given time pictures made by a variety of makers, for example Doulton, Minton, Carter and Simpson.

Simpson pictures were installed in only 14 hospitals, and, of these, four sets had been destroyed and another two sets partially lost.

The only remaining set of a similar design to the pictures given to the Royal Victoria Hospital is in the King Edward VII ward of the Royal Berkshire Hospital and consists on 14 pictures.

In 1992 The Royal Bournemouth Hospital came into full use and the Royal Victoria Hospital was demolished, but not before admirers of the pictures given by WC Clark in 1910 had arranged for them to be moved, mounted as framed pictures and hung on the walls of the three staircases of the Phase II Wing of the new hospital..

I passed this set while visiting a friend in hospital.

You can see a little more detail in an Extra