Auxiliary hospital accounts and statistics
Production date
1915-1918
Description
Indexed annual report and accounts for 1918 with accounts and statistics for 1915-1918. Also includes printed insert containing quoted extracts from reports and correspondence dated 1919. Indexed annual reports and accounts for the years ended 1917 and 1918.
Collection Type
Archives
Level of Current Record
series
History
The British Red Cross Society had been organised on the assumption that the Territorial Army might be employed on active service in connection with its original function to repel invasion. Voluntary aid detachments were accordingly formed with a view to serving territorial formations and to staffing improvised hospitals of the various kinds required by an army in the field. This provision of hospitals was largely available for use later in the war when wounded began to arrive from abroad. It had been one of the duties of the BRCS in peacetime to ascertain what buildings were suitable for the purposes of temporary hospitals, what equipment could be obtained rapidly and how the improvised hospitals could be staffed with the aid of the detachments. The County Directors who had secured promises of houses, the gift or loan of beds, furniture and other equipment in the event of invasion were in many cases able to place before the military authorities, through the headquarters of the BRCS and the OSJ, definite proposals for temporary hospitals to be established in various available buildings. The outbreak of war brought with it a very large number of spontaneous offers, both from public bodies and private individuals. Town Halls, elementary schools, infirmaries, portions of general hospitals, large and small country houses, private houses in London and elsewhere, cottages, garages and stables were offered to the War Office. Many were entirely unsuitable, but most were passed on by the War Office to the Red Cross to be sifted and reported upon. This work was initially undertaken by the BRCS and OSJ separately in respect of hospitals offered through them. On the formation of the joint committee Sir Robert Fox-Symons, who had had charge of the BRCS's Auxiliary Home Hospital Department carried on the work on its behalf until the department was closed. Those buildings which were found suitable were then considered from the point of view of equipment, doctors, nursing staff, and the extent to which cost of maintenance could be borne locally. A total of over 5000 buildings was offered. The connection of the Joint War Committee with individual hospitals was only slight, except in cases where the hospitals were established through the Joint War Committee itself. In the majority of cases, the establishment of the hospitals was the result of local effort, either inspired or directed by the county directors of the BRCS, the OSJ or the Territorial Force Association. When the necessary conditions were met, little difficulty was experienced in respect of funds which were raised by local subscription. Hospitals were accepted by the War Office, after inspection, as being suitable for cases sent from the military hospitals or direct from the front, and as the majority of them were maintained with the assistance of the government capitation grant, the Joint War Committee was not directly responsible for their individual management.
Catalogue Number
JWC/4