![]() ![]() The Commanding Officer of the hospital in 1917 was Lt. Of these men, 514 deaths were recorded, 286 of whom are buried across from the University in Welford Road Cemetery. In total, there were beds in Leicestershire for 111 officers and 2,487 other ranks, through which passed more than 95,000 casualties. Admiral Beatty, a naval hero for his role in the Battle of Jutland, donated his Leicestershire home Brooksby Hall as part of the 5th Northern General, staffed by nurses from the Voluntary Aid Detachment. The supplement is dated March 1909.ĭuring the course of the war, the 5th Northern General expanded from this base hospital building to become a local network of more than 60 locations including North Evington War Hospital, Knighton House Hospital, Gilcross Hospital and the Leicester Royal Infirmary. This can be seen from a British Medical Journal supplement which records the promotion of Major Astley V Clarke MD – later one of the founders of the University - to Lieutenant-Colonel within the 5th Northern General Hospital. Modern documents often assume that ‘the 5th Northern General Hospital’ referred just to the building itself but it was actually a unit of the Royal Army Medical Corps within the TF. Outbuildings were demolished and replaced with four long, flat-roofed brick huts to house officers while nurses and medical staff had rooms in the main building. Three years later, that need did arise and the building was designated as the base for a TF medical unit, the 5th Northern General Hospital. In 1911, the empty County Asylum building was identified by Medical Officers from the Territorial Force or TF (predecessor to the TA) as a suitable location for a military hospital, should the need arise. The University’s main administration building, now known as the Fielding Johnson Building, had been constructed in 1837 as the Leicestershire and Rutland County Asylum, but became empty in 1908 after patients and staff transferred to a new asylum in Narborough which had opened the previous year. ![]() In the intervening years, the future campus performed an important role as a military hospital. University College Leicester (as it was then) began as an idea that predated the Great War and eventually came to fruition when the College was founded in 1921. The University of Leicester itself was founded as a memorial to the local men who died in the First World War, a fact reflected in the institution’s motto ‘ut vitam habeant’ which means ‘so that they may have life’. ![]() Among the many books and documents in the University’s David Wilson Library is a volume entitled 'Roll of Honour of the Men of Leicester and Leicestershire in the Great War, 1914-1919', which commemorates the many servicemen from the city and county who were killed during the First World War. ![]()
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