DUAL FUNCTIONS OF THE HOSKYN CENTRE:
- To maintain Hamilton House, its large hall, its rooms, its kitchens, its car park, its ambulances etc, for the use of any disabled groups in the Rugby area.
- To run a Day Centre for older disabled people, where they can socialise, have entertainment, do occupational therapy, have mild palliative treatment, have meals, go on numerous outings, and generally dispel the loneliness that age and disablement can bring about.
OUR FOUNDER
The Hoskyn Centre was named after its founder, Dr C R Hoskyn but what do today’s Rugbeians know of either him or us?
“Doctor, ambulance worker, sportsman, crusader, brave soldier (he was in the R.M.C. and awarded the Albert Medal, equivalent to the George Medal for rescuing a wounded soldier under fire), freeman of rugby- Dr C R Hoskyn was all of these, but most of all he was a humanitarian and a lover of children. It is difficult to conceive how anybody could have done more for the town of his adoption.”
Charles Reginald Hoskyn was born in what is now Pakistan, and was educated at Bedford Grammar School, where he was captain of the school, captain of rugby and captain of rowing. He went on to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where he was also captain of the XV rugby team and played for Middlesex County Cricket team.
He moved to Rugby in 1910 where he started as a general practitioner. The following year, 1911, he was appointed assistant surgeon at St Cross where he continued to work until 1948.