Massey-Harris Convalescent Home for Canadian Soldiers

1916  - 1919

In 1916 the Massey-Harris Company, a major agricultural equipment manufacturer based in Brantford, Ontario, established a convalescent home for sick and wounded Canadian servicemen in Kingswood, a large Victorian mansion in Dulwich, rented from the railway contractor William Dederich.

The Massey-Harris Convalescent Home for Canadian soldiers opened in April 1916, allied with the Canadian Convalescent Hospital at Bromley Park.  It had 105 beds and was equipped and maintained solely by Massey-Harris, its associated companies and their agents and employees.  The medical and nursing staff were all Canadian.

Following the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916 the Convalescent Home was full by October, with 110 beds.  Patients by then were generally well enough to enjoy the entertainments laid on for them by various bodies - concerts and whist drives in the Recreation Hall, tea parties with local residents and excursions to London.  The Home also had a Billiard Room.  In good weather, the grounds could be enjoyed, with their lawns, hedges, shrubberies and artificial lakes with fountains.  Good food was available, served by waiters at the table.

On 8th February 1917 the King and Queen visited the Home.

The Home closed on 23rd August 1918, a week before its sister convalescent home in Bromley Park, with the remaining patients being transferred to the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington.

In November 1918 the building was used as an auxiliary hospital to the Ontario Military Hospital.  It finally closed in April 1919.