The Dead Nurses' Society

     The men and women who died on military service during the First World War are invariably  the group who attract the most publicity, most column space in newspapers and by far the most mentions on the web. Maybe that's understandable, not only because of the emotions that death during wartime arouses in people, but also because they are so much easier to research. Their names are on war memorials nationwide and the majority of those names are listed on the database of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. With a couple of clicks it's possible to find relatives or local men and women who died while serving their country between 1914 and 1921. Their names truly 'Liveth for Evermore'.

     However, most of those who served their country didn't die but returned home again to take up employment, to marry and to prosper, or possibly to suffer from the effects of war throughout their lives, blighting their happiness. The majority of women were employed on the Home Front and although their work might have been demanding and stressful it rarely put them in immediate danger, though I must exclude munition workers here who often worked under dangerous conditions and who history has chosen to sideline more than any other group of women. The figures I'm using as examples are just a rough estimate but hopefully serve to make a point.

     Between 22,000 and 24,000 trained nurses served with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, it's Reserve and the Territorial Force Nursing Service. The lack of service records in the public domain makes an exact figure impossible to estimate. The number of untrained nurses - members of Voluntary Aid Detachments -  is even more difficult to work out. They included not only VADs who performed nursing duties but also General Service VADs who from 1917 worked as drivers, orderlies, waitresses, clerks, typists, and store-women in military hospitals. Then there were the members of War Hospital Supply Depots whose work involved the sewing of garments, the preparation of dressings and packing of stores and comforts for distribution both at home and abroad. Together the Red Cross workers are likely to have totalled well in excess of 100,000.  If you include nurses working in the military wards of civil hospitals the total figure for nursing staff engaged in caring for military personnel during wartime is likely to have totalled more than 150,000. In addition to these it's believed that nearly a million women were working in engineering and munitions.

     Of this multitude of women workers, only a tiny percentage died during wartime, less than 1% of the total - and of those, very few deaths actually resulted from war service. Most died due to illness or disease that would have proved fatal in any conditions, such as influenza, pneumonia, diabetes, gastric ulcers and cancers of many types. Dead women are now 'celebrated' on websites such as Facebook where many pages are dedicated to women who served during the First World War.  But far from remembering them all, these pages are frequently crammed with information solely on those who died and resulting in bland, throwaway comments such as 'RIP,' and of course, 'We will remember them.' No, I don't think you will - another couple of days and you'll have trouble remembering what you ate yesterday and certainly not the names or causes of death of women whose pictures you briefly looked at. Photos of headstones on Twitter may tell us a woman died, but say nothing about the work she did and what her life was like.

Victory Parade, London, July 1919.  They lived!  They lived!

     Why, why, why can't we celebrate what nurses DID during the war without this mawkish tendency to concentrate almost exclusively on the tiny percentage who died?  After all, they're all dead now, and  deserve the same respect and remembrance. Make nurses famous for their deeds, their endeavour and their dedication, not just famous for dying.

More Misdeeds of Military Nurses

 

 I always enjoy coming across tales of sins committed by nurses in military hospitals and although I don't go hunting for them, when they jump off the page I find them hard to ignore. I've always stepped back from constantly portraying nurses during the First World War as angels of mercy and have tried to show them for what they really were - a wide range of normal women with a variety of different backgrounds and personalities. Finding tales of misdeeds gives a wonderful window onto the social mores of that time and serves as a stark reminder of how things have changed over the last hundred years. I came across this nurse while searching at The National Archives for someone with the surname Kerr.  This wasn't the right file but the contents proved interesting.*

     Margaret Taylor was born in 1893, the daughter of a coal miner, and her home was in Ellington, Northumberland. She trained as a nurse at St. Mary's Infirmary, Islington, and following her training she enrolled as a Staff Nurse in the Territorial Force Nursing Service. Her first posting was to the Killingbeck Section of the East Leeds War Hospital where she was employed from the 20th August 1917. Trouble - or maybe it was love - came swiftly. The following correspondence is taken from her service record and the letters are between Miss Sidney Browne, Matron-in-Chief of the TFNS and Euphemia (Effie) Innes, Principal Matron, No.2 Northern General Hospital, Leeds.

21st October 1917
Letter from Miss Innes to Sidney Browne:

Dear Madam - I am sorry to have to report the following occurrence at the Killingbeck War Hospital. One of the nurses, namely Nurse Margaret Taylor, was married without our knowledge on September 22nd 1917 to a patient who was in the hospital suffering from dysentery. It was found out by the Chaplain, owing to a clergyman he knew mentioning to him quite casually in conversation that he had married two people from Killingbeck. The Chaplain then made inquiries and got a copy of the marriage certificate. The marriage was witnessed by a V.A.D. and a patient from the Hospital. We have suspended Nurse Taylor until we hear from you. The V.A.D. has not been very satisfactory and we had already told her we would not keep her after November 11th 1917.  The patient who has married Nurse Taylor has been suffering from dysentery and had no right to be outside the Hospital grounds.
I am very sorry that this happened as we are very particular about the behaviour of the nurses with the patients, and this kind of thing has such a very bad effect on the patients. I told Miss Tomlin to tell Nurse Taylor that she would probably not be allowed to go on duty again.
Margaret Taylor, Staff Nurse, joined the East Leeds Hospital from the Headquarters Staff on August 20th 1917. She was sent to the Killingbeck Section of the Hospital for duty on arrival.

24th October 1917 
Reply from Sidney Browne to Miss Innes:

Dear Madam - With reference to your letter of the 21st October with regard to Miss Margaret Taylor, I am so sorry to hear about her behaviour, particularly as she had such good references when she joined. Do not let her go on duty again, and unless you and the Colonel think it advisable to allow her to resign, the report of her conduct must be sent in officially with the recommendation as to the course you wish to be taken, and she will be dismissed the Service, but if you and the Commanding Officer would rather she resigned you can tell her this may be allowed, although she does not deserve it, and she must not apply to another Military Hospital for Service again. I shall be glad if you will kindly let me have her married name, when I will let the British Red Cross Society and the other branch of the War Office know she is not suitable for enrolment. Miss Taylor in the circumstances forfeits her claim to a gratuity.

31st October 1917
Miss Innes to Sidney Browne:

Dear Madam - In reply to your letter and in consultation with the C.O. we have decided that it will be better for Staff Nurse Miss Margaret Taylor, now Mrs Kerr, to resign and therefore today I have forwarded her resignation papers to the D.D.M.S. I enclose the Insurance Form but unfortunately Mrs Kerr does not know her number.  I have given her a very severe reprimand and I fear very much she will live to regret her actions.

It's impossible to know of course if Margaret Taylor did live to regret her actions, but after just four weeks devoted to meeting and marrying John Kerr I too have my doubts about the possible recklessness of her decision.  True to her word, Miss Browne confirmed that Margaret Taylor's career as a nurse military hospitals was over by writing the following day to all other interested parties, Ethel Becher, Matron-in-Chief, QAIMNS, Miss Swift, Matron, British Red Cross Society, and Katharine Furse, VAD Commandant at Headquarters:

Dear Madam - I am directed to inform you that the following Staff Nurse T.F.N.S.:
Mrs Kerr, nee Margaret Taylor has resigned from the Territorial Force Nursing Service. If this lady applies to you for enrolment if would be well to apply to this office for further particulars.

If you have John and Margaret Kerr in you family tree, I'd love to know what the future held for them!

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*Service file of Margaret Kerr, née Taylor, The National Archives WO399/12562

A Case of Instant Dismissal

There was considerable unrest during wartime about the lack of protection afforded to nurses in their contracts of service and the risk of instant dismissal with no power of appeal. Following many protests this was changed in early 1918, but prior to that a number of nurses had the misfortune to discover how powerless they were in certain circumstances. More details of the background to this can be read on this page of The Fairest Force website:

Contracts and the Serf Clause

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Mary Elizabeth Southern was born in August 1882 in Binchester, Co. Durham, the daughter of an official in a coal mine. She worked for four years at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne City Lunatic Asylum, Gosforth, before taking her General nurse training between 1910 and 1913 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Union Infirmary. She joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve in April 1915 and was quickly posted to Egypt where she served for a year before being transferred to the Lord Derby War Hospital, Warrington, in August, 1916. Her work and behaviour appeared entirely problem free, but events in the summer of 1917 were to prove her downfall. On the 29th August Mary Southern was dismissed without notice by the Matron, Maud Banfield, herself a nurse impeccably trained and with great nursing experience pre-war both in the UK and also the United States of America. That day Miss Banfield wrote the following letter to the medical authorities:

Copies of some of the photographs are contained in Mary Southern's service file held at The National Archives and one is reproduced below.

It can hardly be thought of as shocking to us today and even then was probably considered fairly mild in most circumstances, but the horror expressed by Miss Banfield knew no limits. Her letter fails to mention quite how angry she was at the time, but a letter written  the following month by Miss Southern to Ethel Becher, the Matron-in-Chief, gives a better idea of what was said by Miss Banfield:

I have served over one year abroad and on a Hospital Ship, and a year in the Lord Derby War Hospital, Warrington, and from this hospital I was dismissed, my offence being that I had given a picnic to five patients and my night nurses. I confess to the deed, at the end of my run of nights I gave that little pleasure to those people. ...  What I must complain of is the severity with which I was punished and the awful personal accusations of the Matron, amongst them the following: 

"You are a disgrace to any nursing staff"
"You are absolutely unfit to wear any nurses uniform"
"You are capable, and guilty of leading nurses astray"
"You are a dangerous woman to have about the place"
"Your familiarity with patients is contemptible."

These and other cruel and untrue things ... 

"Pack up and go as quickly as possible."   In three hours I left the institution, no longer time was allowed me or any other warning given. Thrown instantly out of employment and robbed of reputation. The sentence was as unjust as it was drastic and out of all proportion to the offence.  I was given no opportunity to speak in self defence, evidently I was to be punished to the limit of Matron's power as a warning perhaps.  But if this is such a huge crime I am not by any means the first or only offender. Altogether it does not appear to be a fair example of British mercy and justice. My patients' gratitude and enthusiasm was reward enough for the pleasure I had given them. And though I have had to pay so dearly, I can only regret in so far as it prevents me from doing any further nursing in the Army where every British nurse feels she ought to be serving if possible.

A grievously dishonoured servant, M. E. Southern.

On the 17th October, Miss Banfield replied to Miss Southern's remarks:

On leaving, Miss Banfield added a note to Mary Southern's file saying 'I regret I cannot recommend Mary E. Southern for a gratuity.'

On the 26th September 1917, the QAIMNS Nursing Board met to discuss what should be done about Miss Southern's dismissal, and whether the chance of resignation would be a fairer outcome:

The Nursing Board met to discuss a report received in regard to Miss M. E. Southern, Q.A.I.M.N.S.(R.), employed at Lord Derby Hospital, Warrington.  Miss Southern had been summarily dismissed by the Matron, Miss Banfield, Q.A.I.M.N.S.(R.), on account of flagrant disobedience to rules.  The case was referred to D.P.S. who did not concur in the action taken by the Matron.  Miss Cox-Davies proposed that Miss Southern's contract should forthwith be terminated, but on account of her previous satisfactory records of work, her resignation should be accepted. This was seconded by Miss Lloyd-Still and carried unanimously.

Miss Southern was allowed to tender her resignation rather than having the stigma of dismissal on her record and she did later receive the gratuity due to her. Unfortunately there's no service record for Maud Banfield at The National Archives, but after another intricate affair the following year, full of intrigue and complaint, the Nursing Board recommended that Maud Banfield should be moved from the Lord Derby War Hospital and reign supreme elsewhere.  My sympathies definitely lie with Mary Southern whose account throughout sounds entirely reasonable, and congratulations must surely go to the soldier who had the knowledge and enterprise to develop photographs on the ward of a War Hospital!

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Details above from the service file of Mary Southern held at The National Archives, WO399/7811. Images from the file used with TNA permission and an image fee paid for web use. 

The VAD - For Better or for Worse

VADs at Royal Naval Hospital, Chatham [IWM Q18925]

 

     The centenary of the start of the Great War has brought with it many projects associated with hospitals active throughout the United Kingdom at that time providing care for sick and wounded soldiers. Almost all of these centre on the small auxiliary hospitals which were opened and run under the auspices of the Joint War Committee of the British Red Cross Society and Order of St. John.  In the main these hospitals were staffed by members of Voluntary Aid Detachments (VADs) the majority untrained or partly trained nursing assistants who had little pre-war experience of having to work outside the home and a minimal, if any, background in nursing.  They were supported by other volunteers who helped with housekeeping duties and by male orderlies who provided ambulance and other transport services and night staff for the hospitals.

     The VAD has become the Florence Nightingale of the Great War; all things to all men, beautiful, caring, patriotic and devoted to the cause of healing. I'm trying to think whether I've ever seen mention of one who was plain, unintelligent, lacking in common sense, rude, disrespectful or just plain hopeless.  Actually I have, mainly in reports on their work and behaviour by trained military nurses, but to cast a slur on this icon of womanhood might not go down too well ... well, just one little mention maybe ...  In a report on a VAD from the Matron of No.1 Southern General Hospital, Birmingham, under 'Nursing Capabilities' is written:

Have seen no evidence of any.  She is lazy, very noisy, and has very little idea of discipline.  Talks a great deal. 

     Needless to say, her contract was not renewed. But this type of comment is not uncommon among the VAD service files which still survive at The National Archives. My point is that it's neither accurate nor productive to constantly paint VADs as perfect women. They were not. They were young women from a variety of backgrounds and life experience and with very differing personalities. Most had no nursing experience, nor would they have ever considered nurse training in peacetime.  Only a very tiny number went on to train as nurses after the war, with those that had to earn a living finding employment they considered more suitable to their social station, such as medicine, teaching, public health and social work, and infant welfare. Marriage became by far the most popular post-war occupation.

     The VAD was essential to the running of the nursing services during wartime; she had her place; she did her best though it must be faced that in some instances that was not quite good enough.  She was not the universal panacea that cured all men and all ills. She simply played her part alongside the tens of thousands of experienced doctors and fully-trained nurses, the administrative staff, the clerks and secretaries, male ambulance workers, orderlies and many more. Maybe during the next four years she deserves a little bit less of the limelight and should move over a pace or two to let some of the others stand in the spotlight.

Back to Blighty, but Which Hospital?

I often get asked how and why an individual man ended up in hospital many miles from home rather than a local unit, and here are a few reasons and pointers, though certainly not the complete picture

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     It's highly unlikely that any decisions were made overseas about a patient's destination once back in the United Kingdom except perhaps for a few senior officers, nurses and other women who had special accommodation set aside in London.

     The port of departure, and thus arrival in the UK, would depend on the position of the overseas Base Hospital, which in itself may have been a random choice initially. As the war progressed, specialist units were set up to treat various classes of illness and wounds, and that would have been a deciding factor in the fate of some men on arrival. There was also an enormous concentration of beds in London, Manchester and Birmingham and the chances of being treated in one of those areas was high. There was always a likelihood that men from London or Manchester would end up near home, just by chance.

     Although I have read accounts of men being purposely sent away from home to prevent hospitals being over-run with visitors, it seems that this was never the intention. By September 1914 there were three main aims when men arrived back wounded in the UK – to give priority to those most seriously injured, to clear beds in the largest hospitals as quickly as possible to make room for new arrivals and to ensure that the men were transferred between medical facilities as few times as possible.

     For men disembarking at Southampton, the most serious cases were transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley and the Southampton War Hospital, the latter soon earning the reputation of being one of the busiest and 'heaviest' hospitals in the country. From Dover, the sickest men were found accommodation in London. Men needing specialist treatment were separated out and given some priority to admit them to a unit which suited their needs. Lightly wounded men and the walking wounded were often the ones chosen to do the longest journeys and therefore more likely to end up in cities such as Plymouth or Aberdeen.

     Apart from the worst cases the men would be found a place on the next available train whatever its destination – there seemed to be little question of a Highlander turning down the 16.00 to Waterloo because he’d rather wait for the 19.30 to Glasgow. Because men were often wounded in large actions it follows that men of the same regiment would frequently be wounded, treated and evacuated together, and find their way back to England if not ‘en masse’ then certainly in tens, dozens and scores. So it was not surprising that, for instance, fifty Scots ended up in No. 2 Eastern General Hospital at Brighton and fifty Royal Sussex men in Manchester – often it was just the luck of the draw.

     As the war progressed the pressure on beds became more severe and it was even more difficult to find accommodation than previously. However, as there were more trains there may have been several waiting at Southampton and Dover at any one time and always the chance of different outcomes, but it’s said that even the men themselves were often reluctant to make a decision about destination.  Where was nearer, where was more exciting, where were their friends going; where would the soldier from Cornwall choose when he was in the West Yorkshire Regiment and most of his friends were going north? The vast majority of officer beds in the UK were in London, so an officer was very likely to be accommodated there, at least initially, wherever his home was. As the war progressed there were other important decisions to be made about special categories of patient.

     Before the ‘average’ man could be moved, account had to be taken of mental patients, neurological patients, those with venereal disease, enteric fever and dysentery, serious orthopaedic cases, cardiac and rheumatic conditions, eye and facial injuries - an ever lengthening list.  Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans also had to be filtered off to their own hospitals and the movement of patients soon became a very intricate and complicated process which didn't always allow a free choice of destination. Where this was impossible, facilities were put in place for seriously ill men who were going to be in hospital for a long time to be moved nearer home when their condition was stable. If a man was expected to be in hospital for more than three months there was a high chance that arrangements would be made for him to be transferred to a hospital in his home area – these transfers were often long-distance, and carried out by fitting extra patients into existing ambulance train journeys.

     Throughout the war the pressure on beds was always enormous and all Home Commands were instructed to expand their hospitals to the fullest limit.  Of course this ‘fullest limit’ was never enough, and the number of beds was still increasing in October 1918. The expansion of the auxiliary hospitals and convalescent homes meant that most soldiers would eventually be transferred out of the main hospital, and this was most likely to be to a facility affiliated to that hospital, and therefore in the same locality.  Initially he bed state nationally was being updated weekly and later on twice weekly but as the situation became critical it was done on a daily basis. At time of the Armistice available beds nationwide stood at approx 364,133 and included 18,378 for officers. Between autumn of 1917 and beginning of 1918 the usual daily occupancy was 317,000.

I'm sure there must have been many a bright young ‘walking wounded’ who, seeing more than one train drawn up in front of him, found some way of making a choice but it was really a question throughout of squeezing casualties in anywhere that had enough room to take them – choice would have put an impossible burden on a massively overstretched system.

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The 'Volunteer Nurse'

     With the screening of 'The Crimson Field' on TV, there seems to have arisen some confusion over the 'Volunteer Nurse.' This morning I came across a newly-published edition of Olive Dent's book 'A VAD in France,' first published in 1917 by Grant Richards, and for some years available in new editions or as a free download from the web.**   I was rather shocked that not only is it being promoted as some sort of spin-off from 'The Crimson Field' complete with a cover illustration strongly suggestive that its contents are related, but that the original title has been changed to suit the publisher. It seems an incredibly arrogant stance for a publisher to take, and I have to wonder whether they think the change in title will fool the unwary into believing that it's a different book to the one that can be found free elsewhere. At the very least it shows dishonesty and a complete lack of integrity.

A Volunteer Nurse on the Western Front

     But back to the 'Volunteer.'  When women joined a Voluntary Aid Detachment in the United Kingdom, they received no pay, but were provided with board and lodging if working away from home. When they went overseas, the majority found themselves in a very different position. VADs who worked overseas in British hospitals under War Office control were paid. They received a basic salary of £20 a year, with extra allowances which were extremely generous, and in total added up to more than £115 a year in payment or in kind. It put their annual salary on a par with, or above, many women workers in the UK. To imply that they were working as 'angels and heroines' for nothing is entirely wrong. In the recently published 'Dorothea's War,' the wartime diary of VAD Dorothea Crewdson,* she was constantly surprised at the size of her monthly pay-packet. On the 4th August 1915 she wrote in her diary:

Pay night and we have all received a monstrously and wonderfully large sum of money … The Sisters of course have different pay and more of it. We all feel robbers of the Matron as our salary for the month comes to more than £10 and we only expected £20 a year.

On September 21st she continues:

All the night staff were paid yesterday morning after breakfast.  Matron dispensed coins, done up and packed as usual. VADs got fr 302.75 which is more than £10. Pay is a wonderful mystery and seems always more than one ever expected.

And even when allowances for heating and lighting were discontinued the following year, she had no complaints:

Pay night yesterday and we got fr 334.90, the last big pay we shall have before allowances are cut down. But I am glad as I think it is a waste of English money to pay us all so much.

     So whenever you see VADs overseas patted on the head for doing their job for free, please bear in mind that they did not. They were paid appropriately for their work and they well understood the value of their pay.

*Dorothea's War: Edited by Richard Crewdson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2013
** If you'd rather not pay for your e-book, Olive Dent's original text of 'A VAD in France' is available free:
A VAD in France

Some Hospital Visiting for the New Year

I've recently been looking through some photos of military hospital wards during the Great War and am amazed at what a variety there were. I can't imagine what a sick or wounded man would be expecting as he was loaded on, and then off, the ambulance, but here are just a few examples of what was waiting for him after admission to a base hospital in France.  All these images are courtesy of the Imperial War Museum and are free for non-commercial use - references are given individually.

No.2 General Hospital, Le Havre, IWM Q10557. This hospital was built above the station on the Quai d'Escale and you can see the doors for 1st and 2nd Class passengers and also the Customs office

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No.2 General Hospital, Le Havre, IWM Q10561: Another section of the same hospital in the Casino Lechin, still in all its pre-war grandeur

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No.10 Stationary Hospital, St. Omer, IWM Q28925: This beautiful building is Chapel Ward, part of the seminary which housed the hospital

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No.13 Stationary Hospital, Boulogne, IWM Q29155:  This is 'A' Ward - a bit less glamorous but maybe more functional than those above

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No.32 Stationary Hospital, Wimereux, IWM Q8002: A more relaxed and informal scene, perhaps because it was taken in the early spring of 1919

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No.13 General Hospital, Boulogne, IWM Q29162: A bit more glamour to finish


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Dorothea's War

Dorothea Crewdson was one of more than 100,000 women who served as VADs during the Great War, but in so many ways she stands above the heads of others.  She was one of only a small number of women to receive the Military Medal for her actions during an enemy air raid in 1918* and she is one of the few nurses to be commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, dying during her period of active service in France.  More importantly she is one of that rare breed of nurses who left behind a diary that has survived through the decades.  There are a number of published personal accounts of VAD life during the Great War, most vague about names and places, frequently a mix of fact and fiction making it difficult to judge where truth ends and over-egging the pudding starts. Diaries can provide so much more, usually written with no other motive than to keep an accurate and honest record of a period of life and work which may prove useful at a future time.  As a private account there is no worry about naming friends and colleagues, and no fear of falling foul of the censor by mentioning individual hospitals and locations.

This diary, sympathetically edited by the author’s nephew Richard Crewdson, and accompanied throughout by Dorothea’s own original drawings, covers the entire period of her wartime service as a VAD in France between June 1915 and March 1919. It charts her time at three separate military hospitals and describes VAD life in great detail introducing many friend, relatives, patients and colleagues, some who were with her throughout the period. Very little is written elsewhere about the basic facts of a nurse’s life in France, and in this diary there’s a lot to be learnt about living arrangements, conditions of service, pay, ward work and above all about loyalty and friendship. Although sickness and death have a part in the book, they are not the main players.

The introduction to the book makes no secret of the fact that Dorothea Crewdson’s life was cut short, with her sudden death in France in March 1919.  That knowledge had a great impact on me. As the reader I was aware that I knew that which she did not – that her life was not going to be a long one; that this time next year ...  this time next month ... this time next week ...  I could hardly bear to turn the last few pages and enter her final days, the days that I knew about, but she did not.  The book ends with a letter written to Dorothea’s mother by her Matron, Melina McCord. It’s a heart-breaking tribute, guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of all but the most dispassionate reader.

This diary informs and instructs, but more than that it shows that where loss, death and hardship exist, whether they be personal or professional, ways can always be found to deal with them. It makes essential reading for anyone with an interest in nursing, VADs and hospital life during the Great War.  But be warned – have a handkerchief ready for the finale.

* London Gazette, 30 July 1918: For gallantry and devotion to duty during an enemy air raid. Although herself wounded, this lady remained at duty and assisted in dressing the wounds of patients.  DIED 12 March 1919

For a preview of the book, and a glimpse of some of the Dorothea's wonderful drawings, this will whet your appetite:

Dorothea's War - YouTube

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Dorothea's War, Dorothea Crewdson: edited by Richard Crewdson; published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 13th June 2013:  ISBN 978 0 297 86918 4
[Hardback and on Kindle]

Ambulance Trains - where did they actually go?

During the Great War many existing railway lines nationwide were taken over by the Government in an effort to make the best use of services for transport of goods, armaments, service personnel, civilian travellers and also for ambulance trains. The vast majority of casualties from abroad arrived in the United Kingdom at either Dover or Southampton and unless remaining in one of those two towns they were then transported onwards by train to all parts of the British mainland.

There were two hundred 'stopping stations' - railway stations that received  sick and wounded men and women for onward transfer to local hospitals by motor car or ambulance, and a list of these can be found in 'British Railways and the Great War.'*  In alphabetical order, and excluding Dover and Southampton themselves, they were:


Aberdeen; Addison Road (now Kensington Olympia); Aintree; Aldershot; Ampthill; Avonmouth; Axminster; Bangour; Basingstoke; Bath; Belmont; Bentley; Berrington; Berwick; Bexhill; Bickley; Birkenhead; Birmingham; Bletchley; Bournemouth; Boscombe; Bradford; Brentwood; Brighton; Bristol; Brockenhurst; Brocton; Bromley South; Brookwood; Bulford; Bury St. Edmunds

Cambridge; Cambuslang; Canterbury; Cardiff; Carlisle; Catford; Chatham; Chelmsford; Chelsea; Cheltenham; Chester; Chichester; Chislehurst; Christchurch; Clacton-on-Sea; Clandon; Clapham Junction; Colchester; Cosham; Court Sart; Coventry; Crewe; Cromer

Deal; Derby; Devizes; Devonport; Dewsbury; Dorchester; Dundee; Durham; Eastbourne; East Croydon; Eastleigh; Edmonton; Edinburgh; Egham; Epsom; Exeter; Farnborough; Faversham; Fawkham; Fovant Railhead; Fratton

Gillingham [Dorset]; Glasgow; Gloucester; Gosforth; Gosport; Grantham; Gravesend; Greenock; Greenwich; Guildford; Halesworth; Halifax; Hamworthy Junction; Harlow; Harrogate; Haywards Heath; Hereford; Herne Bay; High Barnet; Holmwood; Huddersfield

Ingham; Ingress Park Siding; Ipswich; Keighley; Kendal; Lancaster; Leeds; Leen Valley; Leicester; Leigh; Lichfield; Lincoln; Liphook; Liverpool; Lyme Regis; Lyminge; London Charing Cross; London Paddington; London Victoria; London Waterloo

Maidstone; Malmesbury; Manchester; Margate Sands; Mayfield; Minster Junction; Napsbury; Neath; Netley; New Barnet; Newbury Park; Newcastle-on-Tyne; Newcastle-under-Lyme; Newmarket; Newport; Newton Abbott; Northampton; Norwich Thorpe; Nottingham; Orpington; Oswestry; Oxford

Paignton; Paisley; Penrith; Perth; Plymouth; Poole; Portsmouth; Preston; Ramsgate; Reading; Rubery; Saffron Walden; Salisbury; Selly Oak; Sheffield; Sherbourne (sic); Shorncliffe; Shrewsbury; Sidcup; Sidmouth; Sittingbourne; Snaresbrook; Southall; Southend; Southport; Stafford; Stoke-on-Trent; Stourbridge; Stratford; Stratford-on-Avon; Strathpeffer; Sunderland

 Taplow; Templecombe; Tidworth; Tonbridge; Torquay; Torre; Walmer; Waltham Cross; Walton-on-Thames; Warminster; Warrington Arpley; Well Hall; West Croydon; West Gosforth; West Marina; Weymouth; Whalley; Whitchurch; Willesden; Wimborne; Winchester; Windemere; Windsor; Witley; Wrexham; York

Strathpeffer Station

The farthest north of these was Strathpeffer, a distance of approximately 625 miles away, and an estimated journey time (with a fair wind and bit of luck) of 20 hours and 33 minutes.  Thank goodness that Richard Beeching was only one year old when the Great War started and many years away from wielding his axe.

The Wounded at Dover by Sir John Lavery (Imperial War Museum)

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*British Railways and the Great War, Edwin A. Pratt (Two volumes); Selwyn and Blount, 1921; now freely available online.