Military Hospital in Jamaica

[Hedley Malloch]

I have been asked by a family friend to help out with a piece of family. history.

She has a letter from her great-great uncle's CO that her relative died of wounds near the end of the war in a hospital in Jamaica. I did not know that the British Army maintained hospitals in Jamaica. Does anyone have any details?

Many thanks in advance for all help received.

[seaJane]

There was both a British Military Hospital (Kingston, now the Bustamante Children's Hospital) and a Royal Naval Hospital (Port Royal) in Jamaica.

The National Archives aren't very helpful but suggest at least one Auxiliary Hospital as well as a possible other site for a military hospital:

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_p=1900&_q="Military+Hospital"+Jamaica

A publication called "Jamaica's part in the Great War" by Frank Cundall is available as an open-source pdf online if you Google for it.

seaJane

[MaureenE]

The December 1918 Monthly Army List lists "Jamaica" as one of the Commands of the Army.  The listing is under Dominions, Colonies and Protectorates

https://archive.org/details/monthly-army-list-1918-dec/page/n243/mode/2up?q=Jamaica

By analogy with India, with which I more familiar, there would have been at least one British Army garrison in Jamaica, possibly more than one, and located within the garrison it is very likely there would have been a "hospital", ranging in size from very small to much larger, depending on the garrison size. I do not know how big the British Army presence was in Jamaica. Presumably if there was only one military hospital, it is the one mentioned by seaJane, but  there could be others. If so, they were probably located inside garrisons, and may have been unknown to the general public, so not well documented.

Maureen

[seaJane]

The West India Regiments were formed in 1795 and "streamlined" to one regiment in 1888, which makes me think that the locals probably knew of the hospital(s) simply from the length of time they'd been there.