Caring for wounded soldiers in North Yorkshire

A team putting together a major local history project involving the First World War is using memorabilia from residents of Ryedale and North Yorkshire.

The project follows the granting of £9,800 by the Heritage Lottery Fund and it will show how residents – especially women – railed to help wounded soldiers.

The project – Home Comforts: Red Cross Auxiliary Hospitals in the North Riding 1914-19 – is collecting as much information as possible while memories of the period are still alive and memorabilia is still available.

The project is being run by the County Records Office in partnership with the British Red Cross Society.

“We are now marking the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War, so inevitably some material will already have been lost in the intervening 100 years,” said North Yorkshire county councillor Chris Metcalfe, executive member for the archives service.

“But we are hopeful that with the help of this support from the Heritage Lottery Fund, our team at the County Records Office will be able to rescue and record for posterity how the women of North Yorkshire threw themselves into the task of providing care and comfort for wounded soldiers.”

Following the outbreak of the First World War on August 4, 1914, the British Red Cross formed the Joint War Committee with the Order of St John to work together and pool resources and fundraising activities.

It supplied services and machinery in Britain and in areas of conflict abroad.

The work was carried out mostly by Voluntary Aid Detachments or VADs, volunteers from the localities who worked in a variety of roles.

An important aspect of Joint War Committee work was in the localities throughout Britain. North Riding contributed invaluable supplementary aid to naval and military forces during the First World War. The branch was formed in 1907 and for its first few years raised detachments and trained its members.

At the start of the war, 35 hospitals, numbering 900 beds, were organised by the locality.

They received patients primarily from York, Leeds or Newcastle, patients usually being more convalescent in nature. They also provided care for Belgian patients who were injured from attacks by German sources.

The first hospital organised and receive patients was Swinton Grange, near Malton, in September 1914. All the hospitals in the area were class A hospitals with the exception of Mulgrave Castle, Swinton Grange, Crathorne Hall, Ayton Firs and Sleights, which were class B. Class A hospitals were institutions that usually provided a higher standard of care for patients and received the sick and wounded straight from military hospitals. Class B hospitals received patients from Class A hospitals when they had become more convalescent.

In 1917, there were 3,830 patients in North Riding auxiliary hospitals.

Hospitals were managed with the upmost care and all work was carried out professionally and efficiently. On January 1, 1918, a system of food control for auxiliary hospitals in the area was implemented, with patients rationed according to a pre-determined scale by the War Office.

At the end of the war, 32 hospitals were in operation in North Riding, with 1,454 available beds. The last hospital to close was Welburn Hall, near Kirbymoorside, on January 31, 1920. The total number of patients cared for in North Riding was 18,442 servicemen.

The auxiliary hospitals were arranged and maintained by Voluntary Aid Detachments (or VADs).

At the start of the First World War, eight men’s and 19 women’s detachments were formed in North Riding. Male detachments were depleted in North Riding as many fit and able men enlisted into the Armed Forces. In 1915, 80 nursing Detachments applied to volunteer in military hospitals at home and abroad under the War Office’s “Special Service” scheme.

By 1918 the number of women’s detachment’s now totalled 40, with 1,492 officers while men’s detachments numbered 689 members.

Additionally 12 male members were sent to France and 43 sent to London to work as orderlies in hospitals. By 1918, 499 members were working in military hospitals, hospital ships and trains, both home and abroad.

Male detachments were predominantly responsible for the provision of a transportation system between train stations and local hospitals. Due to the likelihood of aerial or naval bombardment by enemy forces, the ambulances were also considered to be used to evacuate patients from coastal hospitals. The North Yorkshire Automobile Club and the Cleveland Automobile Club organised transport along the whole North Riding coast for this reason. They used 14 ambulances, specially made for the conveyance of patients, as well as private cars.

Immediately upon the outbreak of war a central repository for clothes and comforts for the servicemen at the Front was opened at Rounton Grange, Northallerton. Weekly supplies of clothing were sent to headquarters, as well as supplies being sent directly to various units at the Front connected to North Riding.

The collection of money in North Riding was important in order to maintain Red Cross activities in the area. An example of a significant fundraising campaign was the ‘Our Day’ scheme in 1917, which gained £4,464 10s 4d to help sick and wounded soldiers at home and abroad.

After the end of the war, all hospitals were demobilised in North Riding, apart from Welburn Hall.

After the last of the wounded soldiers had left Welburn, it was given as a home for pensioners by the Red Cross. The large amount of equipment accumulated during the First World War was distributed to medical institutions in the area. After the Armistice, a mural tablet was placed in every building that had been used as an auxiliary hospital.

The inscription read: “Lest We Forget 1914 – 1919 This building which was equipped and staffed by the British Red Cross Society, and manned by the NR Yorks/Voluntary Aid Detachment, was used as an Auxiliary Military Hospital for sick and wounded Sailors and Soldiers during the Great War From 1914 to 1919, during which period patients were treated.”