Chailey 1914-1918

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Remembering the men and women of Chailey, Sussex, England 
during the First World War, 1914-1918

South Downs Recruiting Poster 1914

Chailey 1914-1918 tells the story of ordinary people flung together by extraordinary events.  It is the story about a village community during the First World War: Chailey, in what is now East Sussex. This website contains the biographies of over 500 Chailey men, sick and wounded First World War soldiers and Sussex 54 VAD nurses.

 

Nurse Edith Oliver, pictured below left, was not a native of Chailey but by the time the First World War started she was living in the village and was also an active member of Sussex 54 VAD.  The autograph album she kept during her time at Hickwells and Beechland House hospitals in Chailey and Newick, proved to be the starting point for my research.  I later extended this to include information on the men and women from Chailey Parish who served during the First World War. Chailey 1914-1918 is the result of that research and is an on-going project. 

 

The soldier patients' entries in Nurse Oliver's album cover almost the entire 1914-1918 period: from Charles Sabourin of the 1st East Surrey Regiment, wounded at Mons on 23rd August 1914, to men wounded at Loos in 1915, the Somme in 1916, Passchendaele in 1917 and finally those wounded in the summer of 1918

 

Hickwells, Chailey c1915

Hickwells, Cinder Hill, Chailey 1915.  Sussex 54 VAD Commandant Margaret Cotesworth stands at the back.  VAD Probationer Edith Oliver who, for four years, asked the sick and wounded soldiers in her care to leave an entry in her album, sits next to Matron Emily Morris Marshall.

This website comprises separate sections on Chailey Parish, the 'hospitals', Hickwells and Beechland House, and the protagonists: patientsnurses and Chailey's men. My narrative, The Hospital Way tells the full story of Chailey's Great War. 

Chailey 1914-1918 is a tribute to the men and women of Chailey during the First World War: those who nursed or were nursed there; those who answered their country's call; those who lie in some corner of a foreign field.
  Visitors to this site who can add any information about any of the locations or individuals from this tiny corner of Sussex, are urged to contact me or leave a comment in the guestbook. Latest news is updated on the Chailey 1914-1918 blog.  Photographs of sick and wounded soldiers at Beechlands are scattered throughout the site and have also been grouped on a separate page.  
 
 

Paul Nixon

 

This site, hosted by Fasthosts, was updated on 13th February 2010.  See my Chailey 1914-1918 blog for latest news and visit the Chailey 1914-1918 bookshop for relevant WW1 titles.  Search the site below.  Thanks for visiting.


The 1914 Southdowns recruitment poster displayed on this page comes courtesy of
Seaford Museum.  My thanks to the trustees for permission to reproduce it here.  

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