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1st Birmingham War Hospital 1914-1918

I

Ian C Pearson

Guest
As you can see from the info below my Great Uncle was sent back to Birmingham to recover from his serious wounds he received in Gallipoli when the Warwickshires charged up Hill 470. (only 29 out of 1500 reached the top) Has anybody got any info on the 1st Birmingham War Hospital. Are there any photos about?

Alfred Christopher Pearson
Service number: 23925
New number: 11631
Date of birth: 27.5.1893
Height: 5ft 11ins
Weight: 10 st
Married: No
Mother: Caroline Doncaster Pearson (nee Noble), Oakwood, White House St., Hereford, previously 32 Norman Road, Northfield, Birmingham.
Father: The late Alfred Pearson, Bishop Rector of Burnley.
Sister: Mrs Williams, The Forge, Castle Bromwich (This is Wrong)
Education: Giggleswick School (Lance-corporal in OTC), Oxford (2 years OTC). Applied for commission 15.8.14
Wounded: 10.8.15 gun shot (rifle) wound to left chest. Displaced heart to right. Affected left lung. Diminution of size of chest by 2½ ins. Impaired his movements and signs of collapsed lung. Cicatrice of entrance and exit wound. Was taken to Malta on 'Gascon Castle' then to UK on 'Somali'. 27.8.15 taken to Lady Ridley's Hospital, 10 Carlton House Terrace West. Then to 1st Birmingham War Hospital. Leave granted 1.9.15 to 31.12.15 then extended to 4.3.16.
Death: Died at British frontier in Mesopotamia 4.4.19. Killed in action by Goyan Kurds on our frontier whither he had proceeded to set up a gendarme post at Zakho in view of anti-Christian disturbances. His body was recovered and Buried in North Gate Cemetery Baghdad.


Many thanks


Bigs
[email protected]
 
Many Thanks

I have had a quick look at all these Links. Very useful. At least I know know which is the 1st Birmingham War Hospital. Great Uncle Chris must have been one of their 1st Patients.

Military Hospitals in the Birmingham Area during the Great War​
​
Steve Cullen


University of Birmingham, Edgbaston

It was decided as early as 1909 to use the University as a 520-bed hospital should war mobilisation ever be required. By 1914 this became a reality and the first 120 patients were admitted on 1 September 1914. The facility was known as the 1st Southern General Hospital. By 1915 additional buildings had been requisitioned to bring the facility up to 1,000 beds, and a further 570 beds were added in the summer of 1916.

Wounded soldiers were brought to the area by train, arriving at the nearby Selly Oak Station. As ambulances were in short supply stretcher-bound cases were ferried to the hospital in cars fitted with tow-bars to facilitate the use of two-wheeled, covered trailer ambulances, which were built to a design by a local man, Mr E. Tailby.


Rubery Asylum, Rubery

The Army Council realised in January 1915 that an additional 56,000 beds would be required to cope with wounded and sick troops. This was known as the Asylum War Hospitals Scheme, and saw patients who were mentally ill being moved to other hospitals in order to provide accommodation for military casualties. As a consequence, both Rubery Asylum and its Hollymoor Annexe became military hospitals. Rubery Asylum became the 1st Birmingham War Hospital and received its first patient on 30 July 1915.

It closed on 31 March 1919, after which time civilian patients were readmitted, although considerable restoration work was required first. Much of the asylum survived until the late 1990s when a policy of reintegration of people with mental illnesses into the community led to redevelopment of the site.


Rubery Asylum (Hollymoor Annexe), Rubery

Located alongside Rubery Asylum, the Hollymoor Annexe became the 2nd Birmingham War Hospital, opening on 5 July 1915. From 1 January 1918 it became on orthopaedic hospital and closed on 1 March 1920 when it became the Birmingham Special Military Surgical Hospital. It reverted to its intended use as an asylum in 1922.

As with Rubery Asylum, Hollymoor survived until the late 1990s, when the site was redeveloped.


Shame no Photos.


The last link I posted them Photos for their Archives.


Regards


Ian Pearson
 
The chapel and tower at Hollymoor. A special extra single line branch was laid from the Longbridge - Halesowen branch railway for 'ambulance trains' to deliver the wounded directly to the hospital. 'By train' arrivals for the University, part of which was seconded to a military hospital, were brought to Selly Oak station and transported by car, or a stretcher-bearing trailer it pulled, to the hospital.
 
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