Photo Album of a First World War Nurse.
PHOTO ALBUM. 21.5cm x 16cm, with 222 original photographs, of differing sizes, mostly tipped in but some loose, some with captions beneath, many in good state but some quite faded; album quarter roan over linen boards, upper board lettered in gilt, spine loose, some evidence of tape repairs.
The album records a nurse’s life at an auxiliary hospital for recuperating soldier's from the First World War at Birmingham. The house at 210 Bristol Road was a large building that was pressed in to use by the Red Cross and converted to a hospital sometime in 1915, and the album records the patients’, maids’, wards’ and general daily life from this period onwards. Many of the photos are of group shots and as most of the soldiers are walking wounded it was probably a staging post before returning to active service or discharge.
Trips were arranged with visits to Stratford-upon-Avon and outings to local parks and other recreational activities, and the album relates a general feel of quite a light-hearted regime. In two photographs all the nurses are dressed in men's pajamas and smoking cigarettes; although the nurses are mainly presented in their starched uniforms, a number of images are clearly taken off duty. The hospital was disbanded in 1919 and a number of the photographs record nurses being demobbed or ‘packed to go home’. At the end of the album is a group of very small photographs evidently taken semi-illicitly, with a Kodak vest pocket camera on 25th April 1915, first day of the calamitous expedition at Gallipoli. These are probably copies taken from snaps by a returning soldier and although a bit faded do give a fair idea of that day’s events.
The house later became the home of J. Rendel Harris (1842-1941), the English Biblical scholar and curator of manuscripts who worked both at Johns Hopkins, and John Rylands Library. He was a Quaker and also director of studies at the Society of Friends' Woodbrooke College, near Birmingham. This connection may indicate the hospital at 210 Bristol Road was a Quaker property. Sadly the building no longer survives having been bombed during the Second World War.
A full list of photographs can be provided upon request.
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