The Pavilion Indian Hospital in 12 images

1. Arrival

‘ We are pushing along at highest pressure with the difficult problem of making a hospital out of this most unsuitable building.’

Col. J McLeod, Commanding officer of Royal Pavilion hospital, in letter to Sir Walter

Lawrence, 3 Dec 1914

2. Hospitals

3. Media

4. Medicine

5. Religion

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

‘I have seen vernacular translations of the gospels at the Pavilion, and I have orders that these should be strictly excluded’

‘Questions arise every day with clergymen and missionaries who wish to be admitted to the hospitals… if it is abroad that any attempt has been made to proselytise men who are sick or wounded, there would be great trouble’

Sir Walter Lawrence in a report to Lord Kitchener, early 1915

6. Culture and diet

7. Leisure

8. Royal approval

‘Our hospital is in the place where the king used to have his throne … Men in hospital are tended like flowers, and the King and Queen sometimes come to visit them.’

Isar Singh, 59th Rifles, to a friend in the 50th Punjabis, India, 1st May 1915

‘Our hospital is in the place where the king used to have his throne … Men in hospital are tended like flowers, and the King and Queen sometimes come to visit them.’

Isar Singh, 59th Rifles, to a friend in the 50th Punjabis, India, 1st May 1915

‘ I tried to bring out that the Pavilion was a Royal Palace and that the initiation of all that was done came from the King. To bring the Corporation… more prominently into it I thought would confuse things in the eyes of India.’

Col. J McLeod, Commanding Officer of Royal Pavilion hospital, in letter to Sir Walter Lawrence,

30 March 1915

‘I suggested to Lord Kitchener that… I should be allowed to take up two large hotels in Brighton. He gave me permission and on the 21st [November 1914] I went down to Brighton. I saw the local authorities there, and instead of taking up hotels, which are unsuitable and costly, I secured from the

Corporation of Brighton the buildings of the Pavilion and the Dome.’

Sir Walter Lawrence, Commissioner for Indian Hospitals, in letter to Viceroy Lord Hardinge,

18 March 1915

9. Local

10. Political

‘I never lose an opportunity of impressing on all who are working in these hospitals that great political issues are involved in

making the stay of these Indians as agreeable as possible.’

Sir Walter Lawrence, Commissioner of India Hospitals, report to Lord Kitchener, early 1915

11. Legacy

12. Letters and Lives

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