Scottish rehabilitation Great War

Asylums, Poor Houses and the like.

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Poppy88
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Scottish rehabilitation Great War

Post by Poppy88 » Tue May 27, 2014 5:49 pm

Hello everyone!

For my masters in the History of Medicine I am currently doing research on the rehabilitation institutions during and after the First World War in Scotland. As there are so many people with personal stories or an enormous amount of knowledge, I am hoping for some input or tips!

I am especially looking for homes and institutions that were the result of charity, because I am interested in how and why these homes were set up, by whom, and what that meant for the character of the organization. I thus have to make a division between military run hospitals (by the RAMCA, mainly during the war, focusing on servicemen that could return) and voluntary homes (run by individuals or organisations, often charitable institutions, and focused on discharged servicemen). However, information about both is very welcome!

At the moment I am compiling a list of hospitals and other medical services in Scotland. This is very difficult as most of these were military run hospitals. So far, I have only found a couple of voluntary or charitable institutions (of some I am not sure exactly what they were - further research is needed):

- The Princess Louise Scottish Hospital for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers, Erskine House (now Erskine Hospital) (this is a difficult one, as it was a hospital, though focusing on ex-servicemen)
- Fort Augustus Abbey, near Loch Ness
- Manderston House, Edinburgh
- The Scottish National Institution for Blinded Sailors and Soldiers (even though I can't seem to find any history, so I don't know the foundation date - I have contacted the organisation)
- The Lord Roberts Memorial Workshops for Disabled Soldiers and Sailors (also The Incorporated Soldiers and Sailors Help Society?)
- Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Home, Inverness
- Royal Soldiers' Home, Colinton Road, Edinburgh
- Royal British Legion Scotland
- Barry Soldiers' Home, Glasgow
- Craiglockheart Hospital
- YMCA Scotland
- Royal British Legion Scotland

I am also looking at experiences of patients and staff in these institutions, especially on the treatments and internal organisation rules.

I sincerely hope for input/tips/information; everything is extremely welcome and would help me a great deal!

Thank you for reading!

AndrewP
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Re: Scottish rehabilitation Great War

Post by AndrewP » Tue May 27, 2014 8:31 pm

Hi Poppy88,

[TS_welcome]

Royal Soldiers' Home, Colinton Road, Edinburgh
The Royal Soldiers Home in Colinton Road (opposite Redford Barracks) is fairly close to where I live. It is now a Salvation Army home, but still retains the name Davidson House, named after the Honorary Superintendent (and fundraiser) for the Royal Soldiers Home, Miss W S Davidson. A letter in The Scotsman of 12-Nov-1914 (available in The Scotsman archives) tells of her plans to set up the home to replace the Mound Soldiers and Sailors Home in Edinburgh. I am not sure what size of building she planned for, but she was hoping to offer recreation for 400 to 500 men at one time. As much as it is a substantial building, I would be surprised if it could hold that amount of people.

On looking at various articles in The Scotsman archives, the home was set up in huts in 1914, and the permanent building was completed in 1920.

I hope you have free access to The Scotsman Archives through your library as it is expensive to subscribe to directly.

Craiglockhart Hospital
Less than half a mile from there is Napier University's Craiglockhart Campus, whose main building is the one used as a hospital for officers during WWI. It was built in the 1870s as Craiglockhart Hydropathic, but was taken over for the hospital during WWI. A few years after the war, it was sold to the Society of the Sacred Heart who used it as a Roman Catholic teacher training college. It had that use under a few names until it was sold to Napier College (in my student days there) in the 1980s; later becoming Napier Polytechnic, and then Napier University. The War Hospital gained some fame for the War Poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen.

See
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/warpoets/history.htm
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/warpoets/
http://www2.napier.ac.uk/warpoets/1800.htm#1800

All the best,

AndrewP

Currie
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Re: Scottish rehabilitation Great War

Post by Currie » Thu May 29, 2014 6:47 pm

If you live in Scotland you can access some newspaper archives from home via NLS. But see Terms and Conditions re Education Institutions. https://auth.nls.uk/ldc/browse.cfm?by=subject&sid=99

The Scotsman, Edinburgh, 24 August, 1914.
CONVALESCENT HOMES.
11 Stafford Street, Edinburgh, August 21, 1914. Sir,—I ask the courtesy of your paper to let it be generally known that at the offices of the Incorporated Soldiers' and Sailors' Help Societies, at the above address, a register is being kept of all those in Scotland who are so kind as to give assistance to invalided soldiers and sailors, of whatever rank, by the offer of convalescent homes
The time for these homes has not yet actually arrived; but it will very soon come. And when it does, I need scarcely point out the greet convenience and assistance it will be to have a register of such homes at a central office in Edinburgh, to which application can at once be made.
I hope therefore, that those who have convalescent homes to offer will be so kind as to write to our secretary, or to myself, giving all the information and details which they may think necessary and which they desire to be entered on our convalescent home register.—I am, &c.
P. C. Newbigging,
Colonel, Chairman.

Those records may be useful if they still exist.

Newington House. (pdf)
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j ... GI&cad=rja

Maybe there's something useful in the Glasgow Medical Journal and others. https://archive.org/stream/glasgowmedic ... 0/mode/2up

Interesting reading. http://www.medicinae.org/e10

Alan

joette
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Re: Scottish rehabilitation Great War

Post by joette » Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:48 pm

As an aside to your post.My grandparents met at Erskine Hospital.He was an injured Soldier -lost a leg in WW1.She was working as a Nurse.He was admitted for rehabilitation and retraining as a cobbler.He was an ex-miner a regular soldier who had served in the Boer War and the South African Mounted Police serving in what is now Sierra Leone as well as South Africa. My granny lived in nearby Old Kilpatrick.It is highly unlikely they would have met in any other circumstances.They did a splendid job with my very severely
injured Grandpa.He was able to work and provide for his family-my Granny and my dad.I have a photo or two of him there.
Researching:SCOTT,Taylor,Young,VEITCH LINLEY,MIDLOTHIAN
WADDELL,ROSS,TORRANCE,GOVAN/DALMUIR/Clackmanannshire
CARR/LEITCH-Scotland,Ireland(County Donegal)
LINLEY/VEITCH-SASK.Canada
ALSO BROWN,MCKIMMIE,MCDOWALL,FRASER.
Greer/Grier,Jenkins/Jankins

Lorna Allison
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Re: Scottish rehabilitation Great War

Post by Lorna Allison » Sat Jun 07, 2014 10:47 pm

Hello Poppy88

My Aunt was head cook at Rosslyn Lee Hospital, Midlothian (near Musselburgh) during the war while it was being used to treat war wounded. She used to talk a lot about a Dr Leggatt and I believe he was the Medical Superintendent. I have a couple of group photos of staff and friends taken there. According to one site on the net the hospital opened in 1864 as a mental asylum and must have carried on after the war as that too, closing in the 1960s.

Much closer to home Dunira House, nr Comrie Perthshire, the family home of the McBeth family and formerly of the Dundas family, was used as a military convalescent home. The building was empty by 1947 and burned to the ground due, I understand, to an electrical fault. Similarly Lord Kelvin's former home Netherhall, Largs, Ayrshire was likewise used as a convalescent home for the war years.

Hope this may be of some help and good luck with the thesis.

Regards

Lorna
Researching:

PAUL: Lanarkshire;
TORRANCE: Lanarkshire
CROSGROVE: Ayrshire, Glasgow
ALLISON: Glasgow
PRICE: Monmouthshire
CURZON: Staffs, Monmouthshire
TAIT, HUME, MIDDLEMAS,: Roxburghshire
PRINGLE: Glasgow, Central Belt, Edinburgh

AndrewP
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Re: Scottish rehabilitation Great War

Post by AndrewP » Sun Jun 08, 2014 8:30 pm

Lorna Allison wrote:My Aunt was head cook at Rosslyn Lee Hospital, Midlothian (near Musselburgh) during the war while it was being used to treat war wounded. She used to talk a lot about a Dr Leggatt and I believe he was the Medical Superintendent. I have a couple of group photos of staff and friends taken there. According to one site on the net the hospital opened in 1864 as a mental asylum and must have carried on after the war as that too, closing in the 1960s.
Roslynlee opened in 1864 under the name of Midlothian and Peebles District Asylum. On googling it, it seems that it was closed in stages, with the final closure being at the end of 2010.

All the best,

AndrewP

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