Revealed: The secrets inside a 120-year-old capsule found at the birthplace of the NHS

A time capsule buried in the foundations of a former hospital in Wales has revealed its secrets.

Workers on a new health centre in the birthplace of the NHS found the treasures in the old Tredegar Cottage Hospital that was erected on the same site in 1904.

Tredegar is where Aneurin Bevan – the Labour politician seen as the ‘architect’ of the health service 75 years ago – was born.

He was only aged six when the hospital opened in his home town, later serving him as the blueprint for the NHS.

After a tip-off from historians, construction workers discovered the capsule under one of four foundation stones.

The historical find has now gone on display at the Blaenau Gwent town’s museum, the BBC reported.

Upon opening it, conservators found newly minted Edward VII coins from 1903 and earlier Victorian ones.

‘What we discovered was that the lead was really tightly bound into the pot,’ Peter Meehan of Cardiff University said.

‘And when they sealed it there was no top on the pot so it was wedged in really tightly.’

Inside were also four tightly rolled-up newspapers – editions of the Tredegar Argus, Western Mail, South Wales Daily News and Merthyr Express.

Visitors to the museum to see the capsule include children from primary schools who are also learning about the history of the NHS.

Philip Prosser, chair of Tredegar local history society, a group of volunteers who run the town museum, said: ‘We are so chuffed that this has come back to us.

‘It is another jewel in our crown. I was born in 1939 and was born with club foot.

‘My parents had to take me to Bristol for treatment. But it was all free because my father was paying into the Medical Aid Society.

‘Everything was planted into his [Bevan’s] brain because Tredegar had an excellent scheme.’

But the idea is to is to eventually to put the items on display in the reception area of the new health centre.

Before to the creation of the NHS, care for the masses was largely provided by voluntary organisations and charities and insurance schemes which left millions of people with little or no access to quality healthcare.

The 1946 National Health Service Act brought together a wide range of medical services under one umbrella – including hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, opticians and dentists.

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