SECRET BENEFACTOR

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 100, 1 May 1935, Page 10

SECRET BENEFACTOR

Identity Revealed

For 25 years St. John’s Hospital, Lewisham, London, has been grateful to an anonymous benefactor whose gifts of land, buildings, equipment and monev have been worth more than £50,000. His identity 'has become known only with, his death. Ho was Dr. Ernest Kitten Ofenhehn, a distinguished South London surgeon, who lived at Blackheath. • An official of St. John’s Hospital told a “Daily Mirror” reporter: “For 25 years Dr. Ofenheim gave his whole-timo services to.the hospital free, and also made, such generous gifts that St. John’s, which at the time ho joined Uio voluntary staff in 1906 had only 30 beds, now has 100 beds, and is one of the best equipped for London ’s free, hospitals. . . “A native of Vienna, Dr. Ofenheim came to England 33 years ago. He was so fond of England that he became naturalised. “Ho owned much property in the neighbourhood and as houses became vacant, ho presented them to us for hospital extensions. In some cases he oven paid tenants to leave, and he ot>tained for us nearly the whole of the! island site on which the hospital now j stands. . “He leaves a wife and three child- ' ren, one of whom, a daughter, is a doctor.’'