| Administrative history | During the First World War many Bart's nurses nursed British and Allied soldiers in the Territorial Force Nursing Service Hospital at Camberwell, the First London General Hospital.
Following discussions with Sir Alfred Keogh, the then Director of the Army Medical Service, about arrangements in the event of the Territorial Force being mobilised, it was agreed that medical and surgical staff from St Bartholomew's Hospital would be commissioned to staff a Territorial Force hospital at a convenient place in London. In April 1914, a site was selected for the hospital, and Dr Walter Alexander Atkinson, a GP practising on Camberwell New Road, was appointed as administrator to the hospital. The location of the temporary hospital was at Myatt's Fields, between Camberwell New Road and Brixton Road, on the site of St Gabriel's College, a former missionary training college, and an LCC school. Following the fitting out and adaptation of the college for the reception of 520 patients, with an operating theatre and a small x-ray room., the first convoy of sixty-eight patients was received on 29 September 1914, with an ambulance train delivering many wounded and refugee patients from Belgium on 18 October, 1914.
The First London General was again run alongside St Bartholomew's Hospital during the Second World War. Helen Dey, Matron of St Bartholomew's Hospital, was Principal Matron of the 1st London General Hospital. |