Red Cross Hospitals in Mumbles during The Great War 

Many temporary hospitals (over 3,000 countrywide) operated by the British Red Cross Society were to be administered under County Directors and staffed by a Commandant, in charge of the hospital; a Quartermaster, responsible for the receipt, custody and issue of article in the provision store; a Matron, directing the work of the nursing staff; and members of the local Voluntary Aid Detachment, trained in first aid and home nursing. Often, ladies in the neighbourhood volunteered, and medical attendance, provided locally, was also voluntary. The patients at these Auxiliary Hospitals, attached to the Central Military Hospitals, remained under military control and were generally for the less seriously wounded and those in need of convalescence.

Victoria Hall had begun its life as a Gospel Hall in about 1875, but in 1914 the Trustees of the Methodist Church, by then its owners, 'placed the premises at the disposal of the Mumbles Division of the British Red Cross Society.' In a short time, local builders and tradesmen had carried out, free of charge, all the small structural and decorative work needed, including bed lockers and dressing wagons. Equipment for the first seventeen beds was donated or loaned by various locals for the duration of the war, and the number of beds was gradually increased to twenty-five. Among the local staff attending were the Misses Bellingham, Evans, Le Boulanger, Taylor, Francis, Hopgood and the two Misses Thomas, plus Mrs Perkins and Mrs Lloyd.

The hospital opened as the ‘Victoria Red Cross Auxiliary Hospital’ in April 1915 under the 3rd Western General Hospital, Cardiff, and the first patients were received on 21 April. In January 1917, seven wounded NCOs and eleven men, several on crutches, arrived at High Street Station and were met by Commandant C. Russell Peacock and some of the Mumbles VADs, who conveyed them to the Victoria Hospital in motor cars kindly lent for the occasion. 

    The South Wales Weekly Post reported on 31st March 1917, ‘With lectures conducted by Dr. Freeman Marks and the examination conducted by Dr. E.T. Morgan, the following candidates in the Mumbles VAD gained certificates during the recent examinations in the principles of nursing--.A. Peacock, Commandant; A.L. Furneaux, quarter-master; F.G. Balsdon, / Batchelor, N. Davies, H. Dickinson, H.V. Dorrell, J. Evans, F.F. Ford, H.B. Griffiths, H.A. Hield, G.A. Looyd, J.A. Oakley, E. Pressdee, W.A. Puddicombe, H. Roberts, E.C. Schpabel, H. Sivertson’.

     On 11th August 1917, it was also announced that, ‘Many of the VAD Ambulance Corps.  were also successful in the examination in the principles of first aid’.

 In all, Victoria Hospital was open for 1,343 days and treated 438 patients at a cost of 4s. 10½d. per head per day, with an average stay of 43 days. Its last patients left on 15 February 1919, and it was officially closed on 6 March 1919. Mr Hugh Peel, Hon. Sec. of the Mumbles Division of the Red Cross, thanked the Trustees for their patriotism in permitting the Society to use the building, which must have entailed some sacrifice on their part. Mr Cumming Evan, responding, said that they had not regarded it as a sacrifice but rather as a privilege, to be able to help in 'facilitating in the succouring of the brave boys who had fought for their country.'

          In the autumn of 1915, Messrs F. Cory Yeo, W.T. Farr and S.L. Gregor, the directors of Graigola Merthyr, Ltd, offered Dan-y-Coed to the Red Cross Society. Also donated were sufficient supplies to equip the complement of 65 beds, with two wards of 20 beds each having been added to the existing house. 'Dan-y-Coed Red Cross Hospital’ was officially opened on 1 November 1915, and the first patients at the hospital arrived on 22 November.

 Great War hospital in Dan-y-Coed: Ward. B Among the patients were a number of men specially transferred for the purpose of being fitted with artificial limbs, which had been designed and made by one of the staff. In addition, a further 18 were admitted from the hospital ship the Rewa, which had been torpedoed in the Bristol Channel on 5 January 1918. During convalescence, all patients well enough to do so were permitted to go out into the community but were instantly recognisable, wearing the regulation ‘hospital blue’ uniform. 

   Two weddings between patients at the hospital and local girls took place at Clyne Chapel in 1917. The first was that of Private F. Oxley, 1/5th York and Lancs. Regiment, to Miss Nellie Bounds of West Cross, in January. Several other patients, nurses and orderlies, all dressed in full uniform, attended, and as well as the Matron, Miss Ada Davies, the Commandant, Mrs A.L. Furneaux, the Quartermaster, Mrs W.T.Farr, and Dr F. de Coverley Veale, the Medical Officer, attended.

  Dan-y-Coed, in the charge of the same Matron throughout its duration, was open for 1,220 days, treating 732 patients at a cost of 4s. 3½d. per head per day, with an average stay of 64 days. On the occasion of its closure, on Thursday 27 March 1919, a reunion of about 230 of the Red Cross workers was held at Dan-y-Coed, greeted by the Deputy President, Commandant Mrs A.L. Furneaux and Mrs W.T. Farr. The spacious wards had been decorated with flags and bunting, and games of whist were enjoyed. There was also dancing to the music of Mr Charles Davies’s orchestra, the catering was by Mr Matthews of Walter Road, and the MCs were Commandant C. Russell Peacock and Quartermaster A.L. Furneaux.

          Mumbles people have always been generous of heart, and the Mumbles Press, paying tribute, commented that 'very few places of its size, if any, can claim a better all-round record . . . amongst the manifold activities of the good folk who stayed at home, the noble work done for our wounded by all associated with the two local Red Cross hospitals, stands out most prominently. The devotion and self-sacrifice displayed by the members of the men’s and women’s voluntary aid detachments during the past four years have been beyond praise, while the generous support extended by the general public in subscription and in kind, has proved exceedingly gratifying.' 

Acknowledgements:

South Wales Daily Post, 17 January 1917, 31 March 1917, 11 August 1917

Herald of Wales, 21 September 1918

Mumbles Press, 18 January 1917, 25 January 1917, 29 March 1917, 1 November 1917, 13 March 1919, 3 April 1919, 10 April 1919, 1 May 1919, 25 September 1919

H.F. Maslen, The Closing of the Victoria Red Cross Hospital, written in the 1920s and republished in the Mumbles and Gower News, January 1971 and Mumbles in Verse, 2006

Photographs: Eunice Fairchild, donated by her daughter, Joyce Hewitt; Mumbles News, April 1970, June 1971; and OHA archive. Penny Hehir, donated by the great granddaughter of Lucy and the granddaughter of Margarey and Mark Lewis, donated the photo of his gradfather, William Horwood Lewis.