Description:The story of the 1st Southern General Hospital in Edgbaston starts with the work of Lord Haldane, whose reforms as Minister of War between 1905 and 1912 included the creation of the Territorial Army. His Territorial and Reserve Forces Act (1907) provided for a complement of nurses to meet potential national needs through the formation of the Territorial Force Nursing Service. This body would staff 23 territorial military hospitals (many to be created through rapid re-purposing of public buildings) with civilian nurses prepared to mobilise at short notice.<small><sup>1</sup></small>
In 1909 a committee was formed in Birmingham ‘to enrol the Sisters and Nurses who are willing to serve in case of invasion, and to revise the roll annually, and to serve as a Nursing Committee in time of war’.<small><sup>2</sup></small> At the first annual meeting of the Southern General Hospital Committee in the City Council Chamber in April 1910 the Secretary reported that 110 names were on the roll (two matrons, twenty-four sisters and eighty-four nurses). Principal Matron Maud Buckingham confirmed that this was sufficient for mobilisation. In June 1909 the nurses had attended the opening of the Edgbaston campus of the University of Birmingham by Edward and Alexandra. Following the 1910 meeting new War Office Badges were presented to the nurses by the Marquis of Hertford, Lt-Col Jordan Lloyd (Administrator of the 1st Southern General Hospital). Plans were in place to use the new university buildings, which in a few days could be converted into a fully equipped 520-bed hospital with a medical staff of ‘well-known physicians and surgeons’. Nursing duties would be familiar, ‘for not more than half the cases would be gunshot and sword wounds’.
When war broke out on 4 August 1914 the 1st Southern General received its mobilisation order at 7.45 pm and by the following noon the Physics building was D Block Barracks. 520 beds were in place by 11 August, ‘the arrangement in the Great Hall exactly corresponding to what was laid down in 1909’.<small><sup>3</sup></small> Deputy Matron Ellen Musson called up ninety-two members of the Territorial Force Nursing Service and installed the Sisters’ Quarters in University House (then the Women’s Hostel, which removed to Wyddrington on Church Road, Edgbaston). The hospital was receiving casualties by the end of the month, the first convoy of 120 wounded being brought to Bournbrook from Moor Street Station in a makeshift fleet of volunteer ambulances. Later convoys were detrained at Selly Oak (then a goods station), including two of ‘Belgian soldiers, who were very much more severely wounded than our own men, and had received very little medical attention’.<small><sup>4</sup></small>
<font color="#666633"><small><sup>1</sup> First Annual Report of the 1st Southern General Hospital Committee, 1910 [BA&H: Birmingham Institutions D/16]
<sup>2</sup> ‘Extract from War Office Circular Memorandum No 83’, Nursing Service of Territorial Force, 1st Southern General Hospital, South Midland Division, First Annual Report of the Warwickshire & Worcestershire Ladies’ Committee, 1909-1910 (Birmingham: Osborne & Son, 1910)
<sup>3</sup> 'History of the 1st Southern General Hospital, Part 1', The Southern Cross, Vol.2, No.13, January 1917
<sup>4</sup> F. Marsh, ‘1st Southern General Hospital’, in The Birmingham Territorial Units, edited by J.E.H. Sawyer (Birmingham: Allday, 1921)</small></font>