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On 13 April 1916, hundreds of people queued up to pay sixpence to tour an empty military hospital on the South Coast. This was no austere Victorian medical building, however, but the Brighton Pavilion, the ostentatious, Mughal-inspired seaside residence created between 1787 and 1823 for the playboy Prince Regent, later King George IV.
His extravagantly furnished former home, seemingly Indian on the outside with its onion-shaped domes, but Chinese on the inside, its drawing rooms filled with silks and chinoiserie, had, since early in the war, served as an unlikely recuperation centre for Indian soldiers wounded in Flanders. By 1916, with the British Indian Army transferred to Egypt and Mesopotamia, and the last Indian patients moved out of Brighton, the War Office converted the Pavilion into a specialist unit for limbless British servicemen.
Before the wounded arrived, the town council – which bought the royal estate from Queen Victoria in 1850 – held a series of open weekends, with admission fees going to the Mayor’s war charities. The Pavilion had been off-limits to most civilians during the conflict, so there was much curiosity to see how it had been transformed and thousands came through the doors.
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PA Wire
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Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
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Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
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Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
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Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
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Imperial War Museum
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PA
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The British Machine Gun Corps during the battle
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Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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Popperfoto
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Hulton/Getty Images
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Topical Press/Hulton/Getty
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Edward Thomas Fellowship
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward’s wife Helen with two of their three children, Merfyn and Bronwen
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BAE Systems Submarines
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War War effort: Women war workers at Cross Farm, Shackleton, Surrey, in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War An early colour photograph of the crater left by the biggest of the blasts beneath German positions near Messines on 14 June 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British sappers laying the mines
Heritage Images/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The remains of a German trench
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Ernst Jünger’s German platoon overcame the enemy forces with his ‘mastery of the situation and iron command’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), whose 1929 novel, ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’, was based on his wartime experiences. Here he is seen with Carl Laemmle of Universal Pictures (left)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The conscription of reserve soldiers in Greece to fight on the Salonika front in 1916. The Greek city was ravaged by a fire the following year, which devastated the area and left thousands homeless
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops marching down the Boulevard de la Victoire in Salonika in 1916, the year before the great fire which devastated the Greek city
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Women leaving a munitions factory on Eiswerder Island in Spandau, near Berlin, at the end of their shift, in around 1917. They are crossing the bridge over the river Havel
TopFoto
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Imperial War Museum
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AP
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Rex
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Topham Picturepoint
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Hulton/Getty
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Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Masked doctors and nurses treat flu patients lying on cots and in outdoor tents at a hospital camp during the influenza epidemic of 1918
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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TopFoto
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Hulton/Getty
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Hulton/Getty
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Mary Evans Picture Library
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Corbis
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Memoria Hürth
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Hulton/Getty
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Nottingham City Council
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Getty
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Time life pictures/Getty
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Universal Images Group/Getty Images
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Hulton/Getty
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Royal Family appear on the balcony
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War People celebrate in the streets in 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities on 11 November 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities in 1918
Getty
The first patients, admitted a week later on 20 April, were to experience a revolution in the treatment of war wounded under the direction of Colonel Sir R Neil Campbell, who had served as Senior Medical Officer for Brighton’s Indian hospitals. Appointed CO of the new unit, he shifted, with his staff, focus to offer rehabilitation and vocational training to the disabled soldiers. These pioneering methods laid the groundwork for the treatment of limbless ex-servicemen still being practised today.
In all, there were 526 beds in the Pavilion and its neighbouring buildings, with eight isolation wards, a staff of 91 doctors and medical attendants, 33 nurses and 80 “general service women”.
Men who had lost limbs were sent to what had become known by the Indians as “Dr Brighton”, to convalesce and gain strength before being referred to Queen Mary’s at Roehampton for fitting with artificial limbs. By August, the Queen Mary’s Workshops – funded by Her Majesty – had opened in the Pavilion grounds to provide patients with skills to help them find employment when released from the Army. The Queen chose the motto for the workshops: “Hope welcomes all who enter here!”
The Pavilion was meant as a seaside home for the Prince Regent (Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove) (Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove)
The soldiers also enjoyed sporting, dramatic and musical events, and published their own monthly newspaper, The Pavilion Blues .
As Brighton Season magazine wrote at the time: “The cheerfulness of our wounded men has often been the subject of deep wonder, even when lying for weeks in bed; but the bright, interested, happy faces during instruction hours strikes a note of gladness in the hearts and minds of everyone who has the good fortune to see them.
“Hope, indeed, has entered here, and the fine finish on all the manufactured articles tells of an interest in their work, without which such excellence could not be arrived at.”
It reserved particular praise for the workshops’ commercial training section. “Here a vigorous preparation for business life in all forms is to be grasped… It is most gratifying to learn already that many of the men who have passed through the workshop are now earning good wages of up to £160 per annum.”
The medical staff (Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove) (Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove)
Kevin Bacon, the museum’s digital development officer, said: “The Pavilion Hospital for Limbless Men was more than a facility for treating wounds; it built new lives for its patients. Some of the patients had joined the Army as unskilled men, but through losing an arm or a leg and being treated at the hospital, they emerged from the war with a trade. That commitment… would not have been considered before the First World War, and it’s a sign of the changing social contract at that time. It’s an early sign that the demands of total war could pave the way for systems of total care, and anticipates some of the thinking behind the creation of the welfare state.”
Fun and games were vital (Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove) (Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove)
'Dr Brighton’s War: Hospitals and Healing in Brighton during WW1', 9 July until 31 August, Brighton seafront. Details HERE . To access Brighton Pavilion and Museum’s First World War resources, including photographs, posters and local periodicals from the time, click HERE
Tomorrow: The Easter rising
The '100 Moments' already published can be seen at: independent.co.uk/greatwar
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