King's Own Royal Regiment Museum

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The Great War 1914-1918

Medical Care

Medical care was more organised than in any previous war. The scale of casualties with which the system had to cope was far larger than any previously experienced. Nurses of Queen Alexandra’s Military Nursing Service Reserve worked in from August 1914. Many women volunteered for service at both home and abroad to assist the troops.

1st/5th Battalion Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) at Didcot, 1914.  The officers in the front row, from left to right, are Lieutenant Bill George, Medical Officer, Brigadier Hibbert, Lieutenant Colonel Lord Richard Cavendish, the Vicar of Didcot and Captain J Young, Adjutant. 
The first Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) Hospital opened in Didcot for men of the 5th Battalion on 17th August 1914. It provided 8 beds and remained open until the battalion left in November 1914. During that time 36 in-patients and 1,019 out patients were treated.
Lieutenant Bill George battalion medical officer, extreme left, Lieutenant Colonel Lord Richard Cavendish, commanding officer, centre, and Vicar Brown.
Mrs Dearlove, nee Allen, (arrowed) provide the information, some fifty years after she worked as a VAD nurse.
Accession Number KO0592/01

Dr Bill George, from Lancaster, and Medical Officer to the 1st/5th Battalion, is seen inoculating Sergeant Clarkson at Didcot. 
Dr George was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1913 and won the Military Cross during the war.
Sergeant Richard William Clarkson, number 1542 and later 240238, enlisted on 13th June 1913 and arrived in France with the rest of the battalion on 14th February 1915.  He lived at Addlecroft, Lancaster and was employed as a clerk.  He was wounded at Givenchy on 9th April 1918.  After the war he became a policeman in Lancaster.
Accession Number KO0104/44

A soldier wounded at the front would be taken to a First Aid Post by stretcher bearers, to receive immediate attention. From here he could be taken to an Advanced Dressing Station, and then onto a Casualty Clearing Station, a few miles from the front. As much as possible would be done for the wounded here. Each station had a ‘moribund tent’ for those for whom there was no hope.

[Staff and patients, including Private A Johnson, at 72 General Hospital Tourville. KO1916/18 KO Neg -]

Once a soldier’s condition was stabilised there would be a journey by hospital train or barge to a stationary hospital. For the most seriously wounded there would be a journey to hospital ship to treatment in Britain.

The road to recovery was often long and slow. Many men were discharged, unfit to fight again. Others were returned to service on the front line.

Sidney Cartmell was a typical wounded soldier.
[Photo: Lance Corporal Sidney Cartmell KO1417/09]

[Wound label, detailing his wounds, and initial treatment]

[Letter from a chaplain to a wounded soldiers mother. KO1417/05]

[Silver War Badge certificate, issued to discharged soldiers. KO1417/13]

[Sidney Cartmell’s treatment card KO1417/12]

[Soldiers spend Christmas at The Queens Hospital, Sidcup, 1917. KO Neg -KO 2070/02]

[Hospital near Aberdeen KO Neg -KO 1529/03 - details needed.]

© Images are copyright, Trustees of the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum.
 You must seek permission prior to publication of any of our images.