Hospitals in the Beds & Herts diocese

[steve fuller]

(Ive gleened all I can see from the site and other sources available to me.)

If a 5th Beds Pvt was wnd or ill in Gallipoli, and it was enough to send him home, is there a specific site he would have been sent to? The fave seems to be Napsbury, but I would like to find confirmation of some sort if its available?

Without his service records (not available ) will i be likely to find any more details from any other sources please? A medical record perhaps (family doctor or military)? The Herts and Beds Diocese list only records names, ranks and Regmnts and im told the diaries show no record of him so Im drifting a bit now!!

Steve, with his armbands on

[Sue Light]

Steve

Unfortunately there was no [by our standards] logic to which hospital a man would have been sent to. He would have been placed on the first available train out of his port of arrival, and then have been at the mercy of which way the train was going, and which units along that route had empty beds. He was likely to end up anywhere in the UK. Of course, by this random allocation, some men found their way to a hospital near home, but that was lucky chance.

Sue

[steve fuller]

Oh!

Thanks anyway Sue. Was that likely to apply to the Hossy ships too would you say or were their entry ports more rigid?

Steve

[Sue Light]

Well, it's not eight o'clock yet, and my brain must be damaged, because I'm pondering over the question! So forgive me if I've got the wrong end of it.

There were the cross-channel hospital ships, which would come in to Dover, and were fairly small, but could do lots of quick crossings - most with a capacity of about 200-400 men [or women!]. But the rest, from Le Havre, or farther afield would use Southampton. I think some other ports were used like Bristol, and Hull, but not so frequently. I've found references to boats going up the Severn, and off-loading men at Bristol [No.2 Southern General] and Cardiff [No.3 Western General], but I'm not sure if that was a frequent occurrence - it seems a bit long-winded to me. Some of the ships were very large, like the Aquitania - on one journey from the Dardanelles she was carrying more than 5,000 casualties, and that needed 20 hospitals trains to take her load to every corner of the UK - hence the lack of flexibility!!

But coming from Gallipoli it would have been Southampton - although, bear in mind that he might not have come from Gallipoli on that journey. I think [but am more than willing to be corrected] it's unlikely that a casualty from Gallipoli would have been put straight onto a ship and ended up in Blighty in a single journey. He would more likely have gone at first to somewhere like Malta, Lemnos, or Alexandria, and then later on have come home - Still Southampton though.

Sue

[steve fuller]

Thanks very much Sue, thats all new information to me so is all helpful! Only just starting to appreciating the scale of it, as Im new to this area of the war. Thank you.

Steve

[Stuart T]

Resurrecting a very old post, Steve - are you not aware of MH 106 at TNA?  Worth a trawl through if you have a name or a date.  http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C10949

 

Now the reason I am posting!

I have a Medical Case Sheet (MH 106/2218) for an RND soldier.  It is dated County of Middlesex War Hospital, Napsbury, Dec 1918 to Jan 1919.  A friendly local chemist translated much of it for me but there remains the identity of the Medical Officer signing off.

It looks like A Cassell.  Does anyone know from the Army List or RAMC or hospital records who this doctor was please?