World War One Military Hospital in England

[Darren89]

I have recently discovered that my great grandfather (who served with the Scottish Horse regiment, M Squadron, 3rd reserve [1/3rd regiment of Scottish Horse]

in WW1 was a convalescing patient  at Edinburgh War Hospital, however prior that (the entry from the Enlistment Registers at Dunkeld Archives (home to the Scottish Horse archives) vaguely states that he was transferred from Mudros to England then to Edinburgh War Hospital. I am trying to establish the hospital he was a patient at prior Edinburgh. Below is a rough timeline from him going overseas to being a patient at Edinburgh.

 

17 August 1915- Went overseas with the 1/3^rd Scottish Horse

 

15.10.1915- Evacuated to hospital to Mudros with Pyrexia, transferred to England with Jaundice.

 

4.1.1916- Transferred to Edinburgh War Hospital, Bangour, West Lothian with Enteric

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Thank you

 

Darren

 

 

[Guest]

Welcome to the Forum, Darren.   Pyrexia was just a catch-all term for high temperature/fever, often listed in the records as "P.U.O."-Pyrexia of Unknown Origin.

 

Mudros usually led back  to Malta by sea (it was effectively one huge hospital during the war) - and thence to, usually, Marseilles. Marseilles to the Channel by train. On the English side, pretty quickly up to Edinburgh-so  perhaps not likely to have stayed elsewhere en route. If he did stay anywhere, it might depend on rank and what damage enteric had done.

   Details of his name and rank might assist my more gifted colleagues (that pretty much all of them) in adding to the story

[Darren89]

Thank you for the information. My great grandfather (George Brodie Ferrier) enlisted as a Private and remained so throughout his service. I am aware the War Office created military records of different cases (however many of WW1 records were destroyed in enemy bombing in 1940), however I was wondering if you could throw some light on any records that have survived regarding the Mudros Hospital deposited with TNA (The UK National Archives)?

 

Thank you,

 

Darren

[alf mcm]

Darren,

  Welcome to the forum. This is George's medal index card. It shows he was awarded 3 medals;- British Victory Medal, British War Medal and 1914-15 Star. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/1262/images/30850_A000533-01042?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=b18edc6458befde2f5a247e28f66ba49&usePUB=true&_phsrc=bmY46452&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=5284991

  This is the first page of the 1/3 Scottish Horse War Diary, available on Ancestry. It is unlikely George is mentioned by name, but you might get lucky. You can see what the Squadron was up to before George was hospitalised.  https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/60380/images/42871_625537_11742-00003?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=cf0842b5783ff79ec6a88af44849ab09&usePUB=true&_phsrc=bmY46448&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=5311

 

If you have any queries, just post them on the forum.

 

Regards,

Alf McM

[Darren89]

Hi Alf,

 

Thank you for the information, I have to admit I did already locate George's medal card. Would it be possible, however to send the War Diary in an attachment on here (so I could download), as the link only takes me to subscribing to Ancestry?

 

Thank you,

 

Darren

[Darren89]

Apologies, I should really include all details of George's service:

 

17 August 1915- Went overseas with the 1/3^rd Scottish Horse

15.10.1915- Evacuated to hospital to Mudros with Pyrexia, transferred to England with Jaundice.

4.1.1916- Transferred to Edinburgh War Hospital, Bangour, West Lothian with Enteric

20.1.1917- Leaving hospital, transferred to 2/3^rd Scottish Horse regiment [regiment stationed in England]

17.4.1917- Left Scottish Horse and joined 2^nd King Edward’s Horse regiment

[kenf48]

By October 1915 there were a number of hospitals established at Mudros, the official history notes a lack of detail of those on the east side of the harbour but details a number on the west side.

 

Men were evacuated from the Peninsula by hospital ships which remained on station throughout the campaign.  They were offloaded at the harbour at Mudros and accommodated in a hospital which had facilities appropriate to need. 

 

The first to be established were the British  No 15 and 16 Stationary Hospitals and the Australians Number 1 and 2 Stationary Hospital.  These were accompanied by No 24 CCS.  In addition Indian medical facilities catered for Indian soldiers.  By August more ‘Hospitals’ were  established, these were:- No 3 Australian General Hospital, No 18 British Stationary Hospital, two Canadian Hospital and a large convalescent Depot formed around No 52 CCS.  Finally in November the hutted  27 General Hospital was established.  

 

This gave a capacity on the West Point of Mudros of over 6000 beds which could be doubled in a crisis to 13,000.  There were three Stationary Hospitals and one CCS at Mudros East, and these would have a similar number of beds.

 

As noted above men were evacuated to Malta, known as  ‘the Nurse of the Mediterranean’ and to Egypt for onward evacuation to the U.K.  Once in the U.K. efforts were made to put men where possible in hospitals at least within the Army Command District.

 

Source ‘Medical Services of the Great War Volume IV ’ Macpherson

https://archive.org/details/medicalservicesg04macp/page/n3/mode/2up

 

 

 

As regards the link to the war diary on Ancestry given above most UK library services are offering free access during lockdown. For copyright reasons it is against forum rules for members to post attachments from pay for view sites, except under certain ‘fair dealing’ conditions.  An entire war diary, were it even possible would breach those rules.  

Ancestry also offer a free trial and around this time of year access to military records. I don’t have the details.

 

The war diaries for the medical units are also on Ancestry but they only record the number of admissions and discharges.  No 16 Stationary Hospital, for  example maintained over 900 other ranks each day in October with considerable ‘churn’.

[alf mcm]

Darren,

   George was one of 100 patients who arrived at Bangour ‘straight from the Dardanelles’ on 4^th January 1917. There were only 18 men from Scottish regiments, plus 5 officers including 2 from the H.L.I. and 1 from the Lowland Cycle Company. There were only 2 Scottish Horse, George and Pte. Daniel Davidson 952. Bangour had it’s own railway siding so men could be offloaded from the train and taken straight to their wards. {from Midlothian Advertiser, 7^th January 1916, page 4}.

 George probably went straight from hospital ship to ambulance train, so would not have been in an English hospital.

 

Regards,

Alf McM

[Darren89]

Good morning, thank you so much for all your help. May not have been lucky with finding George's full service record (unfortunately I believe I will have to cut my losses, as I believe his record was one of the unfortunate 'burnt records'!), however a few bits and pieces from other sources you guys have provided, goes a long way! I will certainly check out Ancestry.

 

One last question, the War Diary in question, could you tell me what the title of the source on Ancestry?

 

Thank you again!

 

Darren

[alf mcm]

Darren,

   Not sure what you mean by title of the source, but if you want to find this record yourself;-

At the Ancestry home page click on ‘card catalogue’, at the right hand side of the screen.

This takes you to the card catalogue {list of records}. At ‘keyword’, top left, enter ‘diaries’ without the apostrophes, and click on search.

Click on UK, WW1 War Diaries {Gallipoli …..}

At the search screen at ‘keyword’ enter ‘4293’.

This will open up the file containing the war diaries. It also contains war diaries for other regiments in 2 Mounted Division. {You can see the list here https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4557446 }

Back at Ancestry, scroll down the results page until yo see 1/3 Scottish Horse.

Click on it and scroll left and right until you get to the page you want.

 

Regards,

Alf McM

[Darren89]

Thanks folks for all your help! I will no doubt be in touch again with other enquiries.