Netley Hospital & the Green Howards

If you sail down Southampton Water on your way to the Isle of Wight, - or maybe even further afield, you pass a striking red brick building with a domed tower on your left. This building is set in the middle of some very attractive parkland, and is quite distinctive. Opposite is the gigantic oil refinery of Fawley.

The building you see is all that remains of Netley Hospital. It was the Chapel for the hospital, but is now all that remains of what was once a gigantic complex. It now serves as a museum.

Netley Hospital, - or, more correctly, the Royal Victoria Military Hospital, was a consequence of Florence Nightingale's experience with the casualties of the Crimean War. She campaigned hard to have a hospital built for the treatment of wounded soldiers, and Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for this new hospital in 1856.

By 1863, the hospital was ready to receive its first patients. It was a massive building, - over 450 metres long, and had 1000 beds. At the time, it was the world's largest hospital. The picture below is from an old print showing the building as it appeared at the time that it was built.

The first Professor of Military Surgery in the newly opened School of Military Medicine at Netley was a well-known member of the 19th Foot, - Thomas Longmore. In 1843, Thomas Longmore was an Assistant Surgeon with the 19th Foot, and he saw service with the Regiment in the Ionian Islands, the West Indies, Canada, and the Crimea. He was one of the body of people who lobbied for better treatment of wounded soldiers, having seen the conditions at Scutari.

The first soldiers to use the hospital would have fought overseas in the various campaigns and small wars of Queen Victoria's reign. Amongst the first patients would have been soldiers from British India, who were sent out there after the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

The hospital then received patients through to the Boer War (1899-1902), the First World war (1914-1919), and the Second World War (1939-1945), before finally closing in the 1960's.

The main hospital building was demolished in 1966, and the surrounding area became the Royal Victoria Park.

In the hospital grounds there is a cemetery. This contains the bodies of soldiers who have died in the hospital, together with those of the families of those who worked at the hospital.

Those soldiers who died during the First and Second World Wars are interred in a part of the cemetery maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Over 700 soldiers are buried here, and although the majority are from the Commonwealth a number of Germans, Belgians, and other nationalities are also buried in the cemetery.

Almost every British Army Regiment is represented in this cemetery, and the Green Howards are no exception.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers will have been treated in, or stayed in, Netley Hospital. Almost certainly this will have included thousands of men from the 19th Foot, the Yorkshires, and the Green Howards. However, only relatively few of these men have left any form of "footprint". For a few men of the 19th and the Yorkshires we do have such footprints, and they are recorded here.

Sir Thomas Longmore is possibly the most famous of all the Green Howards who have been associated with Netley Hospital, and some of his story is told here. Other known examples of men from our regiment who have been through Netley Hospital are;-

1 Discharged to Pension on Returning from British India (1867 & 1868).

2 Treated at Netley Hospital on Return from British India, - Sergeant J Waterhouse (1870).

3 Interred in Netley Military Cemetery (1915), - Sergeant R Gallon and L/Cpl J Carpenter.

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