Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, Osborne House, overlooking the River Medina, where she had spent her final years, was surplus to the requirements of the new king, her son Edward VII.In 1903, part of the estate, including the Osborne Stable Block, was converted into a naval training college, while the main house became a military hospital.There would be a large gymnasium and recreation hall, plus single-storey class-rooms and bungalow dormitories built of Euralite, with concrete floors, heated by steam from a boiler house.[8] Osborne inspired the Merchant Navy's Nautical College, Pangbourne, founded in 1917, where boys continued to wear naval uniform and to maintain some other traditions.[8] William Mansfield Poole, the head of modern languages at Osborne, proceeded with his boys to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and continued to teach there.