The Hospital Way

In August 1917, The East Sussex News had reported that Lieutenant Magnus Robertson, owner of Brook House, had been awarded the Military Cross and there were reports later in the year of awards to some of the Sussex/54 personnel. In October, the Sussex Express reported that Frances Blencowe’s name had appeared in the list of nurses who had been mentioned to the Secretary of War for ‘valuable services rendered in nursing the wounded’ and the following month there was the report of awards to Margaret Cotesworth and Miss Marshall:

ROYAL RED CROSS - The King has been pleased to award Miss Margaret Cotesworth the Royal Red Cross decoration (2nd Class) in recognition of her valuable services while acting in the capacity of nurse. Miss Cotesworth’s numerous friends will be pleased to hear of the honour conferred upon her and will congratulate her upon the event. She is the only daughter of Mr G Cotesworth of Roeheath, Chailey and some time back was the Commandant of Hickwell’s Hospital which has been transferred to Beechlands, Newick, the residence of Mrs Harcourt Rose. Miss Cotesworth takes a deep interest in all local matters and is an enthusiastic worker for all local causes. A similar decoration has been awarded to Miss Emily Morris Marshall, Matron of Beechlands, Newick and previously Matron of Hickwell’s Hospital, Chailey.

That aside, there was very little, in the autumn and winter months of 1917, that the newspaper editors deemed to be newsworthy about the daily routine of a single auxiliary hospital in the remote Sussex countryside. They had reported on a cricket match between convalescent soldiers and a local team from Piltdown but the story was only of interest because the soldier players had lost either an arm or a leg. Beechlands patients were amongst the spectators and the team and hardly surprisingly, the soldiers had been beaten, despite “the continued source of surprise and admiration” they elicited from those spectators who witnessed their brave performances.

Cricket matches aside though, there was very little that was new. Typically, the last two stories concerning Beechlands personnel in 1917 relate to a whist drive in aid of the Reading Room and “letters of appreciation” received by Margaret Cotesworth for parcels of Christmas goodies sent to the Front.

Perhaps Nurse Oliver too, was growing despondent at the relentless stream of men through the doors of Beechlands and maybe she felt that her little album had lost its novelty. The majority of the entries that can be dated, relate to the years 1915-1917 with very few that can be attributed to convalescent soldiers in 1918. Nevertheless, she continued to present it to some of her favourite patients and they in turn responded with their customary rhymes or drawings, occasionally giving some brief background on their war service. However, gone for the most part were the regular soldiers, the Kitchener volunteers and the territorials, and in their place, conscripted men like Archibald Capham who should never have found themselves wearing khaki in the first place.

According to his entry in Nurse Oliver’s book, written in June 1918 whilst he was serving with the 4th Reserve Battalion of The Suffolk Regiment, Capham was “late South African Constabulary & Hong Kong Police –

China

.” The entry was indicative of what was important to him because according to his surviving army records, he had certainly had a pretty torrid time since becoming a soldier. Conscripted in June 1916, Capham had been married to Sadie for nearly four years, had two young children: Archibald aged three and Grace aged two, and was anticipating the arrival of another in January. Born in Hammersmith thirty years earlier, at the time of enlistment he was working as a hotel manager and living in Ealing, West London. The medical examination that he had undertaken on 9th June had designated him B1 and he had been posted to the 1st (Reserve) Garrison Battalion of The Suffolk Regiment at Tilbury. Within five months he had been appointed Lance-Corporal but already his health had started to deteriorate.

After the war he would declare to the Medical Board that he had suffered a rupture in October 1916 which had been brought about by digging trenches and filling and carrying sandbags. He had attended two Medical Boards in December 1916, followed shortly afterwards by a posting to the 4th Reserve Battalion. In January, his wife Sadie had given birth to another daughter - Georgina – but Private Capham was still suffering pain and discomfort as a result of his rupture.

On 10th March 1917 he was rushed to Number 331 Field Ambulance at Sheringham with a hernia and subsequently taken by ambulance to the 1st Eastern General Hospital at Cambridge where he was operated on for a double inguinal hernia. He was admitted on 12th March and remained in hospital for the next seven and a half months. Rejoining his battalion on the 29th October he had hardly had time to become re-acquainted with his pals than he was back at The 1st Eastern General in Cambridge again, this time with an ulcer and abrasion on his knee that kept him there between December 1st and 10th.

Incredibly, at the subsequent Medical Board in January 1918 he had been classified “A” by the panel and after two further Medical Boards had been supplied with a truss. By now he had been posted to Crowborough in Sussex and a further operation was required. This time it had been carried out at the 2nd Eastern General Hospital in Brighton. There had been a recurrence of the hernia on the left side – for which another truss was ordered – and he had had a hammer toe amputated. It was at this point, ferried from Brighton to Newick, that he had met Nurse Oliver.

By August 1918, Archibald Capham was deemed fit enough to be posted abroad. When he had been fit enough to train he had successfully completed a course as Lewis Gunner and on the 28^th he duly disembarked at Calais and was posted to another battalion of the Suffolk Regiment serving in the line. Six weeks later he was shot in the arm and came straight back to England, spending nearly seven weeks in hospital at Woolwich with a severe flesh wound. By the time he was discharged, the war was over but it would not be until the following July that he was discharged. A grateful country awarded him a lump sum gratuity of £32 and ten shillings in respect of his left inguinal hernia, aggravated by war service.

Meanwhile, some of Nurse Oliver’s former patients continued to die in the service of their country. James Sweeney, wounded at Hill 70 in the battle of Loos in September 1915 while fighting with the 13th Royal Scots was killed in the big German offensive that was launched on the morning of March 21st 1918. Transferred to the 12th Royal Scots after recovering from his Loos wound he was one of four men of that battalion to be killed in action on 26th March 1918 and is commemorated on the Pozieres memorial.

Chailey families too continued to mourn the death of sons, fathers and brothers killed in the service of their country. To the end of 1917, 33 men had been killed in action or died of wounds. Three had been lost in 1914, six in 1915 and twelve each in 1916 and 1917. 1918 would be the worst year of all with a further 17 men losing their lives, two of these after the war had ended. Captain Magnus Robertson MC of the 9th Essex would be amongst the fatalities, killed in action on the 22nd August.

By the time of his death however, Nurse Oliver had already ceased to nurse at Beechlands. On June 20th, the last four soldiers that she would present her album to, all left their marks on the same page.

235377 , Pte A Weaving, 3rd Worcesters, Wounded & Gassed Sept 26 1917

& April 14th 1918.

Pte J H Richards, 11 East Yorkshires’s, Wounded Feb 21st 1918 Nr Lens

Pte Joseph R Fish, 86th Auo [?] Squadron, USA

No 8451 Pte J Spruce, 8 North Staff, Wounded March 26 1918

Eleven days later, on July 1st 1918 Nurse Oliver ceased working at Beechlands. Since her engagement had begun on October 14th 1915 she had worked a grand total of 3,334 hours. Five months later, the hospital itself closed, shutting its doors for the last time on December 9th.

The following day, many miles away from Newick, Private Ernest Whitcomb died. It was Whitcomb who in 1915, had written in Nurse Oliver’s album about ‘frost bites’ to his feet. He had however, recovered sufficiently to be declared fit and was posted to another battalion of the Middlesex Regiment – the 5th battalion – where he had been subsequently wounded. Transferred again to The Labour Corps he had been posted to what is now Greece and died there on 10^th December 1918. He was buried at the Mikra British Cemetery in Kalamaria.

…………………..

Although the war may have been over, it continued to exert its influence on Chailey for many months to come. By July 1919, 203 villagers were still serving in His Majesty’s Forces either at home or abroad and over 350 men had offered their services at land, at sea or in the air. Of the 71 men reported by The Reverend Jellicoe to be serving their King and country in 1914, 15 of them had been killed in action and less than half of them had come through unscathed.

Sixty men connected with the parish had been killed in action or had died of wounds or sickness and their losses would be keenly felt over the coming years.

Reg Philpott, too young to serve in the First World War but a schoolboy at the time remembers the little details like Ron Cottingham, sucking his thumb continuously after his father was killed; of the Clarkson brothers who both had “a rough time of it”, Tom Clarkson the schoolmaster wounded in 1916 and invalided out of the army in 1917 and his younger brother Dick captured by the Germans in 1918; Harold Campbell who lost an arm in 1918 yet still somehow managed to milk his cows and Tom Funnell bed-ridden as a result of being severely gassed.

For some families too, the tragedy continued into the next war. When Sapper Owen Hobden died two days after the armistice, he left two sons, Jack and Herbert, and a wife at home in Chailey. In 1940, Jack was killed in the Second World War.

Commemorating their dead was something the villagers of Chailey felt very strongly about and even before the war was over a temporary war memorial, readily paid for by them, had been unveiled in the summer of 1918. The teak triptych made of wood from HMS Britannia can still be seen in St Peter’s Church. The memorial was unveiled on June 4th but a further eleven men from the village would die in action before the year was out.

News reached the village about mid day on the 11th November that the Armistice had been signed and the same evening, “a large and reverend congregation” filled the parish church to give thanks for the victory. Services of thanksgiving were also held the following Sunday.

In June 1919, The Chailey Parish Magazine reported that at an adjourned public meeting held at The Reading Room, it was unanimously resolved to erect a granite war memorial designed by Mr Cotesworth, on which were to be recorded the names of those connected with the Parish who fell in the war. It was decided by a narrow majority of two votes that the location for the memorial should be opposite the Reading Room and on October 2nd 1920, it was duly unveiled.

As for Sussex/54 VAD, Annual Reports held for Sussex Red Cross branches in the British Red Cross Archives show that it continued to thrive after the First World War had ended.

At peace celebrations held in the village on July 19th 1919 a Special Eucharist and service of thanksgiving was held, 114 soldiers and sailors attending a ‘sumptuous dinner’ in the Parish Room. Children were presented with medals by R C Blencowe to commemorate the end of the Great War and each child had his or her medal pinned to shirts and blouses.

The concluding toast paid tribute to the work of the Red Cross and especially mentioned Beechland House which had done such good work with Miss Cotesworth as Commandant. Frances Blencowe was also singled out for praise and she responded by warmly thanking the proposer and the company generally for the hearty reception. She said that she was sure she was speaking not only for herself, but for all VADs in the parish when she said that the services which had been rendered with a glad heart would always be at the disposal of the sick and wounded, as she felt that “once a VAD always a VAD.”

Margaret Cotesworth continued as Commandant, in charge of a staff of eleven until 1921 when she resigned and handed over the reins to Frances Blencowe who immediately set about on a recruitment drive. By the end of the year Sussex/54 had 40 lady members, had held six classes in first aid and was one of a number of VADs commended for “keeping up their members and in the particularly useful direction of enrolling new and young recruits for training.”

And what of the men who left their marks in Nurse Oliver’s album? One must assume that the majority of them settled back into civilian life as best they could. Some of course had been sent back to fight once they were deemed healthy enough by the army authorities to continue with the struggle against Germany. A few had been killed in action or wounded again. Others made the army their full time career once hostilities had ceased.

But for the most part, they simply returned to what they had been doing before they had responded to their country’s call; slipping back to their own towns and villages and trying to get on with the business of civilian life again; reminded of their army service by the pain of old wounds or injuries and the memories of scenes recalled in battle that refused to go away.

Surviving British Red Cross Society accounts for the war years give total patients nursed by Sussex/54 VAD as 99 between August 1914 and December 31st 1915, 255 in 1916, 344 in 1917 and 260 in 1918; a total of 958 men. Nurse Oliver’s album contains the names of 129 of those soldiers, less than 14 per cent of admissions, although of course she would have had a hand in nursing the majority of the men who stayed at Hickwells and Beechlands.

Little is known of Edith Oliver’s life after the Great War had ended. Holiday snaps taken in 1922 in Dartmoor and pasted into her album indicate that her association with Margaret Cotesworth certainly out-lasted the war and there was no reason why it should not have done so. Just as her former patients had re-adjusted to civilian life, Edith Oliver reverted to the role of Lady’s Companion. Her real home though was Essex and at some point she returned there, moving to the village of Broomfield, a couple of miles from where she had been born and brought up. Kelley’s 1955 street directory for Essex shows that she was living at 13 New Road, Broomfield. By 1964 she was still in New Road but had moved a few doors along to number 21. By now an old lady in her eighties, she is remembered by her great nephew as being tall and rather stern. Edith Oliver never married and when she died she was buried in the village churchyard. A few of her belongings including a battered and rather tatty autograph album which she had kept more than half a century before, was passed down to her nephew Joe for safe-keeping.