Cheer Boys It’s Hartlebury!: The Story of Hartlebury Voluntary Auxiliary Detachment Hospital in World War I

When Britain declared war on Germany on 4th August 1914 plans were already in place in case the war wasn’t ‘over by Christmas’ and casualties were such that the provision of hospitals was inadequate. The government and military authorities began identifying suitable buildings to take over as hospitals and the Red Cross identified those that could be set up as auxiliary hospitals and convalescent homes. The first hospital in Hartlebury was at the Woodlands. It received its first contingent of wounded soldiers from the Southern General Hospital, Birmingham, on 17th March 1915. In June 1915 the hospital was moved to Hartlebury Castle, the home of The Right Reverend Huyshe Wolcott Yeatman-Biggs, Bishop of Worcester, who made a converted stable block available. It was equipped to accommodate 16 wounded soldiers and was classed as Worcester VAD 8. ‘Cheer Boys It’s Hartlebury!’ tells the story of the 435 soldiers (and the nurses who looked after them) who left their stories in the autograph books kept by the Commandant, Francis Gibbons, and Nurse Stocks (held at the Hive Library, Worcester). It contains over 600 previously unseen photographs, drawings and poems taken from these books and gives a tremendous insight into the lives led by the soldiers as they convalesced at Hartlebury and revelled in its oasis of peace before, in many cases, being sent back to fight, and in some cases, to die.