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The road to recovery: Patients on Ward 5A of Beaufort War Hospital
ALL CHANGE ON THE HOME FRONT Jessica Hope visits Glenside Hospital Museum to discover how the Bristol Lunatic Asylum underwent significant change during the First World War
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hile war raged overseas in Europe, by 1915 hospitals in Britain were quickly becoming overcrowded with the sheer number of wounded soldiers being transferred from across the English Channel. In a desperate attempt to create more facilities and beds for soldiers, the War Office took over Bristol Lunatic Asylum and developed it into a war hospital in order to deal with the increasing demand for orthopaedic treatments. After agreeing to change the asylum’s name for the duration of the war, the newly titled Beaufort War Hospital (named after the Duke of Beaufort) expanded the building’s facilities on an enormous scale. The number of beds increased from 520 to 1,640 – including beds that were even added to the corridors as the hospital came under pressure to treat the growing numbers of patients. The day rooms and night wards of the asylum were transformed into medical and surgical wards, while corrugated iron and patent plaster were used to make temporary operating theatres. The wounded arrived in Bristol by train, with many soldiers making the journey in the middle of night so that members of the public did not witness the extent of the injuries they had suffered while fighting abroad. As the soldiers arrived in their hundreds, they were greeted by volunteers and members of the Red Cross. One letter by Bernard Joseph McDermott of the Royal Engineers recalled how surprisingly uplifting his arrival into Bristol Temple 48 THE BRISTOL MAGAZINE
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MARCH 2017
Meads was, after such a long journey from the trenches: “We arrived at Bristol Station about 2am on Whit Monday; a sore, tired lot, after many weary hours on train and boat. We thought we were going to London, but many of us seemed so fed up that we didn’t care much where we were going. We certainly didn’t expect any fuss to be made of us at that hour of the morning, so you can imagine our glad surprise to see a bright array of Red Cross sisters and smart looking Ambulance Corps. The cheery, animated scene, with the red and white of the sisters and the dark blue and silver of the ambulance men, looked picturesque, spectacular – like a theatre scene. “Before you could wink twice, we were putting ourselves outside of tea and cake to our heart’s content. While some served the good things, others gave us postcards – wrote them for us and arranged to post them for us – and one dear, thoughtful, motherly lady gave us luxury of luxuries – a nice pocket handkerchief each. And then there were the cigarettes. The splendid handling of the large number of stretcher cases was a sight good to see.” (Published in the Western Daily Press, 28 May 1915.) As the wounded arrived at the Beaufort, they were cleaned, their often dirty, lice-ridden clothing was removed, and they were given clean, brightly coloured blue flannel uniforms with red ties (known at the time as convalescent blues) to wear before being assigned to a particular ward. While the photos available from this time are in black and white, you can imagine how bright and colourful the