Dr Williamson, Dr Pearse and the Pioneer Health Centre : The Rise and Fall of the Peckham Experiment

Unlike later buildings called ‘health centres’, The Pioneer Health Centre was not a medical facility offering curative services. It was a club in which families were encouraged to cultivate their own health, and in which the doctors who ran the Centre attempted to look at health, science and social development in a new way. At one level, as a local social welfare project, the Centre was a significant success. At another, it had a much greater ambition, which was to find a way to address the growing threat that human activity posed to the natural environment. This aspect of the experiment was not a success, but can now be seen as having been visionary for its time.

The story of the Peckham Experiment will appeal to anyone who is interested in the influence of biological ideas on social welfare politics in early twentieth century Britain, and anyone who is seeking to think about new ways to improve the human environment, strengthen local communities and improve the lives of ordinary people.