Horton County of London War Hospital Epsom

[Guest M Makepeace]

Here are some photographs, mostly of the Horton County of London War Hospital, Epsom, Surrey.

• General view of the hospital.
• The Tea Room.
• The Recreation Room.
• The Recreation Hall.
• Patients and Nurses. July 26 1917. (see below for details)
• One of the wards. January 2 1917. (no details)
• South Croydon Relief Hospital. October 21 1917. (no details).
• Members of Permanent Staff of Officer's Command Depot, Scarborough, 23 December 1918. (no details).

The Patients and Nurses photograph includes;

Back Row, left to right, Sergt. Shallus; H Gilliband; Roper; Nurse Jacksley; Harvey, Sister Taylor; Falio?; Mc Bride.

Middle Row, left to right, J.Green; Amos; Pemberton; R Makepeace; King; ; J.Ledger.

Front Row, left to right, J. Scott, (Canadian); J.T.Stark; Munroe.

[dannybou]

Would this be the same Epsom as when Station Sgt Greene was killed during a riot with members of the CEF in 1919?

[ianw]

Yes, Danny. This is indeed the same Epsom. Yur comment led me to find the old thread about the murder and do a bit more investigation. I must go and see the cross to the sergeant in Epsom Cemetery.

This part of Surrey has quite a lot of Canadian military connections including a by-pass road in a large cutting that was constructed by Canadian engineers in WW2. The same guys (or at least one of them) also "constructed" the daughter of an old lady who was once my neighbour around here)

[dannybou]

If you do attend would you be able to take a photo of his headstone? Over the last couple of years, I have obtained the Met police record on the riot, the Canadain soldiers arrested for the murder personnel file as well as the Canadian Army's investigation into the riot. I have quite a bit of documents on this sad event.

[Moonraker]

Years ago, I naively bought this card

 

 

because on the back was inked what appeared to be a contemporary caption "Tidworth Hants".

 

Nowadays a little more informed, I did some research, my first reaction being that the inscriber meant Tadworth in Surrey a theory reinforced by the postcard publisher, H Hillman, having produced many other local cards. A further bit of Googling yielded one or two other matching images that are captioned as showing Horton County of London War Hospital, Epsom. (Tadworth is four miles south east of Epsom.)

 

Moonraker

 

(See this thread concerning confusion between Tidworth - sometimes rendered as Tedworth - and Tadworth.

[seaJane]

If that is Tadworth I was a long-term in-patient 1974-5 when it was the country outpost of Great Ormond Street Hospital (still is as far as I know). They are always interested in seeing old pictures if you feel like being generous with your time.

 

sJ

[Moonraker]

TBH, now I've belatedly determined that my photo is not of Tidworth, I'll be offering it on eBay after Christmas. I would be happy to send a scan to the Great Ormond Street archivist, but I think I've shown that the hospital is not only not in Tidworth nor in Tadworth, but in Epsom.

 

Moonraker

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 21 December , 2016 by Moonraker

[seaJane]

Ah right, I thought the deduction was that Tadworth was sufficiently close to Epsom for the two to be the same.

 

My mistake!

[Moonraker]

Not to worry, Jane. I myself spent a confusing hour comparing images. You know how it is: Google helpfully (or not) suggests websites that don't quite match one's needs, then one has to click on such images and go to the appropriate webpage, only to find it's not what one wants. At one stage I thought that the tower in the background was that of St John the Evangelist's church in Tadworth and was about to look at maps of a century ago, then found out that the church had been built only in the 1960s.

 

Moonraker

[Guest]

In October 1918, my great uncle Charles Purvis Robert Charlton (a Lieutenant in the Royal Montreal Regiment) was treated at the Horton War Hospital for a gun shot wound to his left arm.  I feel that the attached photo was very likely taken there shortly after his surgery.  He is the man on the far right hand side of the back row of the image (with his arm extended and bandaged and his smiling face brightly lit from his left).

Although the definition is not great, the nurse who is furthest to the left certainly looks to be nurse Jacksley as identified in the previously posted photo "Patients and Nurses. July 26 1917".  Unfortunately, I do not have any details concerning any of the other individuals in the photo.

Hoping that this image will be of interest to the forum.