The seventeenth anniversary festival of the Hospital for Sick Children took place, yesterday week, at Willis's Rooms, under the chairmanship of Sir John Duke Coleridge, M.P. This hospital was started in 1852, and ever since it has progressed gradually and steadily. The committee of management, beginning with twenty beds, were now in a position to accommodate the occupants of seventy-five beds; and they desired, if possible, to provide for the reception of double that number. In addition to this, the committee had purchased Cromwell House, Highgate, which was being converted into a convalescent home, intended to accommodate fifty five children, and which it was hoped would shortly be in readiness to receive inmates. The in-patients, which in 1852 numbered 143, had risen in the past year to 718; and in the out-patients' department the applicants for relief amounted to 15,143, being an average of 220 per day. In order to provide for this large increase on the demands of the charity, it was necessary that the hospital should be enlarged and reconstructed, which would necessitate an expenditure of upwards of £30,000. The secretary (Mr. S. Whitford) acknowledged subscriptions and donations amounting to 1600 gs.

Source: The Illustrated London News, Vol. LIV, May 22, 1869, p.527