The History of our Hospital

The C.O. Tells How the Hospital Came into Being - Part One
Lt.Colonel Bruce Bruce-Porter

The medical arrangements of the Army were excellent for the peace establishment and for a small campaign, but to cope with possible mobilisation of the Territorial Force Sir Alfred Keogh planned T.F. medical organisation. The branch with which we are most concerned is that of the General Hospitals, which were to be the Base Hospitals of the Force. These hospitals existed, till mobilisation, mostly on paper, their only permanent staff being the C.O., the Registrar, the Quartermaster, and forty-one N.C.O.'s and men, the remaining officers and the nursing staff being only available for duty after mobilisation. In London there were to be four General Hospitals, 1 and 2 City, and 3 and 4 County. The 3rd London General Hospital is naturally the one in which we are interested. The Medical and Surgical Staff of the Middlesex, St. Mary's, and University College Hospitals provided practically the whole of the officers available on mobilisation. The N.C.O.'s and men who kept our Unit alive during the most depressing period of the T.F. (at a time when the enthusiast in favour of universal service felt he was best serving his country by helping in the early death of the Territorial Force, and so would not join, and the slacker who had no intention of giving up his amusement made the plea for universal service his excuse, and so did not join) came from the City firm of Messrs. Hitchcock and Williams.

During the early days of August, 1914, we were hourly expecting the word "mobilise," but we had to carry on as though war were a thing remote. The Unit accordingly went to Aldershot for the Annual Camp on the Saturday night of August 1st, and, having pitched tents and made the camp as comfortable as possible on the first day, we went to bed tired out. At 11 p.m. on Sunday a telegram was handed to me ordering our immediate return to London. On Tuesday night, at 11 o'clock, another telegram arrived at Headquarters: "Mobilise, act accordingly." The first difficulty was that there was nothing to say what the word "accordingly" meant. There had never been a rehearsal, and nothing positive was known as to the source of supply of equipment. Who was to give the order to take over the building and how it was to be done were equally indefinite problems. The only safe course appeared to be to act first and to get authority afterwards.

Major Miller accordingly arrived at Wandsworth at 6 o'clock on Wednesday morning with twenty N.C.O.'s and men with orders to empty the "Patriotic School" building, taking over on charge anything of use. I myself went to the T.F. Association at the Duke of York's Headquarters to find what was to be done about equipment. Here I met with the first series of shocks. The list of equipment was that of a Field Hospital, and was quite unsuitable for a hospital in a building such as this. Next, even the furnishing firms of repute, who had in June written that, being in touch with all the bedstead makers, they could at a moment's notice supply us with unlimited bedsteads, when asked for 1,000 bedsteads were incapable of supplying one. Fortunately I found from a friend that an order for 300 beds had been placed with the Hospital Contracts Co., to send to France, and these I was able to secure, and by means of promises of further orders, the delivery began the next day. The fact was that there were many bedsteads in the country at the time, but private houses were being converted by their owners into hospitals (without the least prospect of their being used), and so the big hospitals were handicapped. Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, our senior surgeon, with Sir Victor Horsley, next took over the task of selecting the surgical instruments. Captain Humphris meanwhile secured the only X-ray installation at the time on the market in London, for, the German sources being cut off, the shortage was acute until America could supply. This X-ray installation was complete, and a trial photograph was actually taken, five days after mobilisation was ordered.

The general difficulties were increased, as I have said, by an extraordinary error on the part of those responsible for the carrying out of Sir Alfred Keogh's scheme. The equipment was to be ordered from a Field General Hospital list, and intended to be carried in carts. Naturally, this was quite useless for a fixed hospital. For example, oil lamps and entrenching tools in quantities were sent here. Moreover, one of the committee responsible for the equipment, with the best of intentions and a supreme desire to relieve our anxiety as to bedsteads, told us of a supply of which he had control, and from which we might have hundreds. By this time I was very suspicious, and so, fortunately, decided to run no risks by letting go of what I knew was good on the chance of better - till I actually saw the better. I told Colonel Thorne, through whom the offer had been made, that I would take 150 of these beds. Major Miller 'phoned me later in the day that the first load of these bedsteads had arrived. Behold, they were racks, one tier above another, meant for bunks for men sleeping at their work in time of strike. Mr. Howard Williams, however, was a good friend, and made purchases of bedding for us in the City, and he helped in many other ways. Lady Gladstone, too, who had just returned from South Africa, collected from her own friends, and, with the assistance of the wives of our officers, had by the end of the first week handed over 1,000 night-shirts, 500 bed-jackets, and innumerable other things.

Ten days after mobilisation we were ordered to prepare for 500 in case of need, and that night, by 9.30, 520 beds were made up, not all, it is true, on bedsteads; to be exact 350 were on bedsteads and the rest were on mattresses on the floor. Two operating tables were ready, and the sterilisers were going all night. The surgical staff were in part here, and the others were at the end of the telephone. It may be added that the whole of the alterations necessary in the sanitary and ventilation arrangements were carried out in such a manner that at the end of each day the wards were put ready for patients.
(to be continued)