National Association for the Prevention of Consumption and other forms of Tuberculosis, successor and associated bodies

At a meeting of members of the medical profession in June 1898 it was decided that 'a public movement' should be inaugurated 'with the purpose of endeavouring to prevent the ravages caused by tuberculosis in the United Kingdom.' The National Association for the Prevention of Consumption and other forms of Tuberculosis (NAPC) was founded in 1899 with three main aims: the education of public opinion and the stimulation of individual initiative; influencing central and local government; and the establishment of local branches. The Royal physician Sir William Broadbent was Chairman of the first Organising Committee, and the Council was composed of both laymen and prominent public health and tuberculosis doctors including James Crichton Browne, Arthur Ransome, Alfred Hillier and R.W. Philip. In April 1919 it changed its name to the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis (NAPT). The doctor, lawyer, and writer, J.H. Harley Williams, was a long-serving Medcial Commissioner and Secretary-General.

The Association's main activity was propaganda and health education. It organised conferences, lectures, exhibitions and touring caravans, produced health information material, including leaflets, posters and films, and published journals.These included NAPT Bulletin, Health Horizon, and Tuberculosis Index. It also offered an information bureau and enquiry service. Through networks of local affiliated organisations it supported the establishment of sanatoria, dispensaries and care commitees around the UK and abroad. It also aided individual sufferers, and in 1928 began to offer grants to individual necessitous cases. The Association funded research in the UK and abroad. Studies included that of F.C.S. Bradbury into the connection between poverty and tubeculosis in Tyneside in the 1930s, Eric Wittkower's research into psychological factors in tuberculosis in the 1940s, and enquiries in Burma, Cyprus, and the West Indies, among others. Individual committees examined particular issues, such as mass radiography and sanatorium design and construction. The Association also supported training and education for medical staff, and offered scholarships for overseas students. It formed special sections for sanatorium matrons, nurses and those involved in medico-social work.

In 1917 The Association made an appeal to start a Farm Colony for discharged tuberculous servicemen and in 1918 acquired a site at Frimley in Surrey, where it established and administered Burrow Hill Colony. It later offered treatment to the sons of war veterans. The Colony was closed in 1943 and the property sold. In the 1950s a new scheme (known as athe Burrow Hill Training Fund) was inaugurated under which grants could be made from the income of the Trust to men and boys for training in suitable occupations.

The NAPT also took over a number of other charitable enterprises. In 1954 the Queen Alexandra Sanatorium Fund and allied Funds, including the St. Moritz Aid Fund, Huggard Memorial Benevolent Fund and the Mary Beck Trust Fund, were transferred to the NAPT. In the early 1950s the Spero Fund (Previously the Central Fund for the Industrial Welfare of Tuberculous Persons) also appointed the officers of the NAPT to act as Trustees and to take over its administration.

Owing to decline in the prevalence of tuberculosis, the Association extended its objectives to other diseases of the chest and heart that were often dealt with by tuberculosis physicians. In 1956 it altered its Memorandum of Association accordingly, and added the words 'and Diseases of the Chest and Heart' to its name. In April 1958 the name was changed again, to The Chest and Heart Association for the Conquest of Chest and Heart Diseases through Research, Education and Treatment, commonly known as the Chest and Heart Association (CHA). The new name came into use on 1 January 1959. By this date, the Association's activities covered heart disease, lung cancer, bronchitis, asthma, pneumoconiosis, cystic fibrosis and other diseases as well as tuberculosis. Anti-smoking campaigns were included in its work at this date. By the 1970s the Association had begun to pay more attention to the area of stroke and The Volunteer Stroke Service was established . In 1975 the Association's Memorandum and Articles of Association and name were again revised to reflect this, and it became The Chest, Heart and Stroke Association. In 1992 the Association decided to focus exclusively on the area of stroke, working to reduce the effect of stroke on patients, their families, carers and the community, and changed its name to The Stroke Association.