Bradford Royal Eye and Ear Hospital

The Royal Eye and Ear Hospital was a subscription hospital which treated some of the first wounded soldiers to arrive in Bradford in October 1914. It continued to treat wounded soldiers throughout the war although numbers decreased as other provision was made in the city. It also played an important service in removing foreign objects from the eyes of munitions workers treating at least 5,000 cases during the course of the war.

40,000,000 Eggs wanted - but not the chocolate variety

“I should just like your girls to see the delight on that fellow’s face. He looked like the egg had dropped down from heaven. I believe if a man came along with a £20 note in one hand and an egg in the other he’d take the egg”

National Egg Collection for the Wounded© IWM (Art.IWM PST 10836)

The National Egg Collection for the Wounded was started August 1915 it aimed at first to collect a million eggs for the wounded. The scheme proved was very successful actually achieving an average of one million eggs a month. In February 1917 during the special ‘Children’s Week’ 300,000 eggs were collected when the weather was very bad and eggs scarce.

By January 1918 the scheme had sent over seven million eggs to hospitals at home and over 25 million to hospitals abroad. But at this time the national egg shortage had grown, some people, frightened by the orders of the Food Controller and the Board of Agriculture, had disposed of their chickens as they didn’t think they would be able to get food for them. The shortage of imported supplies and increased demands from the hospitals at this time also exacerbated the difference between supply and demand. “There are more wounded than there ever were and less eggs to give them.”

The war office asked for a further quarter of a million eggs per month over and above the existing supplies. An appeal was launched to reach a target of 40,000,000 eggs. People were asked to sacrifice their own eggs for the soldiers.

Poultry farmers could despatch the eggs for free to the Central London Depot, or to one of the 2,000 local depots across the UK, and the eggs were distributed to the hospitals by the war office. People who had their own chickens were asked to give a tithe of their eggs each week. Those without chickens were encouraged to give money so that eggs could be brought.

“You people in your comfortable homes have not the remotest idea what the eggs mean to us out here, to say nothing of the pleasure they give. A chaps been out in the trenches for a year, eighteen months, perhaps 2 years; he’s never seen an egg! He wakes up one morning and finds himself in a clean and comfortable bed. Someone comes along with one of your fine newly laid eggs. I should just like your girls to see the delight on that fellow’s face.”

So when enjoying your eggs this Easter spare a thought to those who sacrificed their lives and those at home who sacrificed their eggs during the First World War.

Sources

British Journal of Nursing 21^st August 1915

Save our Soldiers, An Appeal for the National Egg Collection for the wounded
Flight, 18th January 1917

Clayton Auxiliary Hospital

Clayton Auxiliary Hospital opened in April 1917 it was the female Infirmary block of the North Bierley Union Hospital. It accommodated 114 soldiers brought from the Bradford War Hospital. Prior to this it had been used to train nurses and to accommodate patients displaced by the utilisation of the whole of the whole of the Bradford Union Institution as a War hospital.

In July 1918 it was expanded by the utilisation of 3 hospital tents accommodating 30-40 soldiers.

For more information read the full article.


If anyone has any further knowledge of the use of Clayton Auxiliary Hospital or North Bierley Union during WW1 or of nurses who lived there after this time it would be lovely to hear more.

Bowling Park Colony

Bowling Park Auxiliary Hospital opened on 16^th April 1915. It was used until St Luke’s War Hospital was opened in December 1915. It accommodated 80 soldiers brought from the 2^nd Northern War Hospital at Leeds and later the East Leeds War Hospital.

The grounds of Bowling Park was also used as a camp for the Second Pal’s Battalion in May 1915 before they moved on to Ripon.

If anyone has any further knowledge of the use of Bowling Park Colony during WW1 or of nurses who lived there after this time it would be lovely to hear more.

On this day 18th January...

1887 – Manchester Road Baths opened

They were opened largely as a result of corporation and municipal officials being shocked by the large numbers of the “great unwashed” when they went to open Bowling Park on the 4^th September 1880.

The Baths were situated midway between West Bowling and Little Horton so that they are convenient to residents from both districts.

It was considered desirable to make provision for a branch free library and reading room, the Free Library Committee paying the Sanitary Committee £40 a year to rent the space. The building is therefore larger than would have been required for baths only.

“It is in gothic style, and the main feature of the exterior is a tower of octagonal form, which rises from the front at the junction of Manchester Road and Cotewall Road. There is an entrance to the building on each side of the tower. The ground floor, on the Manchester Road side is arranged for the free library and reading room. The space is 47feet by 23 feet, a high partition being introduced to form separate departments for male and female readers, the part set aside for the later being reached by a doorway which leads to the women’s bath room. The library will be accommodated in a recess erected at the rear of the reading room, from which it will be separated by a counter, across which the librarian will hand books to borrowers in both departments. The arrangements for the baths are a very complex nature. The department for males is on the Cotewall road side of the building, and it is reached through a spacious entrance hall, from which also the curators rooms are accessible. The swimming bath is very capacious, being 60ft in length and 30ft in width. There are 48 dressing boxes, each with a separate compartment for shower baths. Above these dressing boxes there is a balcony supported by cast iron columns and here there are 10 first class and 19 second class slipper baths and accommodation for vapour baths. This portion of the premises is reached by a stone staircase from the entrance hall. The baths for females are situate on the first floor over the reading room, the accommodation comprising four first class and 8 second class slipper baths; there are also a first class and second class vapour bath.”

The baths were also heated by a new more modern method which enabled the bath to be filled with warm water in a tenth of the time of the old method.

The overall cost of the building was £8,000

It was stated that “to some it will be a matter of regret that in the new premises there is no provision for a Turkish bath, but the town is not badly accommodated in this respect. The Corporation, in addition to having department for the Turkish baths at the Thornton Road establishment, about two years since fitted up premises in Horton Road for use as a ladies’ Turkish bath; and there are also private baths of a similar character in another part of the town.”

Source

The Leeds Mercury, Wednesday November 24^th 1886

Bradford War Hospital / St Luke’s Hospital

Information on how St Luke’s came to be Bradford’s base War Hospital have been uploaded onto the BradfordWW1 website. At its height it provided almost 1,550 beds for wounded soldiers and that was just one of 9 military hospitals open in Bradford at the time. 

Read on find out more

Bradford’s military hospitals - overview

It is well known that Bradford had its own base War Hospital but this does not paint the whole picture as there were many more auxiliary hospitals that also treated wounded soldiers. It is difficult to provide total figures for the number of soldiers treated in Bradford as some were transferred from Hospitals in Leeds to a variety of auxiliary hospitals before the first Red Cross Trains brought wounded soldiers straight from France to the Bradford War Hospital in November 1915. 

Several blogs in coming weeks and months will provide information about the various military hospitals however here is an overview of the different hospitals that treated wounded soldiers first the three main hospitals that could take patients straight from disembarkation and then the auxiliary hospitals. 

Bradford War Hospital, St Luke’s Hospital run by Bradford Board of Guardians
Abram Peel Hospital, Leeds Road Hospital run by Bradford Corporation
Bradford Military Hospital, this was either at Bradford Moor Barracks or at Belle Vue Barracks

Bowling Park Auxiliary Hospital, Bradford Board of Guardians home for male imbeciles
Clayton Auxiliary Hospital, North Bierley Union Infirmary
Field House Auxiliary Hospital, Bradford Royal Infirmary’s convalescent home
Guiseley Auxiliary Hospital, not sure which hospital/private home this was
Royal Ear and Eye Hospital, Bradford a voluntary subscription hospital
Salt's Auxiliary Hospital, Saltaire Sir Titus Salt Hospital, charitable hospital
Woodlands Auxiliary Hospital, Rawdon, Bradford Royal Infirmary’s convalescent home

If you have any information on the location of the Bradford Military Hospital or the Guiseley Auxiliary Hospital please get in touch so that a more complete picture can be painted.

Military Nurses @scarletfinders.co.uk

Following on from my previous posts about Bradford Royal Infirmary’s (BRI’s) Nurses League I found a great website about British Military Nurses - http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk

 

It contains background information on military nurses from Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service and Territorial Force Nursing Service to civilian nurses. There are accounts of nurse’s experiences during the Great War overseas and at home. Military Medals are described along with the names of some of the nurses that were awarded them. Interesting there is official war diary of the Matron-in-Chief, of the British Expeditionary Force France and Flanders.

I have been sharing the information I have been gathering about Bradford’s WW1 hospitals as the site lists UK war hospitals in 1917 and in return she has shared information about nurses from Bradford who joined the 'regular' Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (not the reserve). This prompted me to go back and look again at the Nurses League Records to see if I could identify which nurses who trained at the BRI were military nurses more on that later this week.

There are also guides to finding medical records and researching a nurse.

You can find out more by reading the related blog by the same person called “This Intrepid Band”about nurses in the Great War or by following @scarletfinders