In November 1932 the Tavistock Clinic moved into a new building on the corner of Torrington Place and Malet Place. It was positioned alongside the University of London and renamed the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology. The building had previously been the stables for a Tottenham Court Road department store, but JR Rees had employed an architect to completely redesign the interior, creating modern consulting rooms, a specialist child play area, lecture theatre, library and canteen. They even had a primitive one-way screen for observation.
The adult patients waiting room, 1932
Hugh Crichton-Miller oversaw the move to the new building, but resigned shortly after with JR Rees becoming the second Director of the Clinic in 1933.
Malet Place consulting rooms 1936, small
The move to Malet Place was part of a wider business plan to establish the Clinic as a postgraduate institution on the university scene. JA Hadfield, who had got university recognition for the Clinic’s Diploma in Psychological Medicine from the University of London in 1932, was made its Director of Education in 1935. He immediately established a two-year training course for doctors wanting to take up psychotherapy and created a wide programme of public lectures, the highlight of which was a week of lectures by Carl Jung.
A consulting room at Malet Place, 1932
In 1934, JR Rees pulled off a PR coup by successfully obtaining Royal patronage from the Duke of Kent. This patronage represented the Tavistock’s ‘arrival’ on both the medical and social scene.
Photo of Malet Place, 1936
During the 1930s the Tavistock Clinic underwent a major period of expansion. In the first year of its life, with seven doctors, the Tavistock Clinic had seen 249 patients. In 1939 there were 90 doctors and 1811 patients, with the Adults Department alone seeing 26,500 appointments the first half of the year.
The play room, 1936