Queen Victoria and the public at large were outraged at the conditions that British troops had to tolerate during the Crimea conflict (1853–56). The army sent out 54,000 men, of whom around 18,000 died and 9,000 became invalids. Most of the casualties succumbed not to bullets and artillery but illness – infections such as cholera and dysentery, and even to scurvy. Even for the wounded who made it back to the UK, the military facilities available to treat and rehabilitate severely injured men were dispersed across multiple sites and were primitive.

The Queen’s demand for a suitably large, dedicated military hospital led to the purchase of over 200 acres of land at Netley, near Southampton. This site was chosen because it provided easy access by sea for hospital ships returning to the UK from all over the Empire and it could enjoy all the facilities of the major port nearby. The building would also be a statement piece so this prominent location, standing over one of the busiest waterways in the Empire, was ideal. Queen Victoria herself came to lay the foundation stone on 19 May 1856 and took an active interest in the hospital and its patients for the rest of her life, visiting frequently. She continued to do so even when she became too infirm to walk, and in the late 1890s she was pushed around the wards in a wheeled chair by a royal attendant.

The project was an enormous undertaking, with builders working to a tight deadline to avoid royal displeasure, yet the architect had his eye on a beautiful, imposing creation. This led to significant disagreements about the design, which was criticised by many including Florence Nightingale and Lord Palmerston, the prime minister. They both felt it would not allow the free circulation of clean air. This concern reflected the prevailing mid-Victorian theory about infection before the discovery of bacteria, that it was spread by ‘bad air’. It was also Nightingale’s personal experience that stuffy, stale air was not a pleasant environment in which to work or heal. Some minor alterations were made in an attempt to placate Florence Nightingale and her supporters, but they were not significant.

Facilities
When the construction was completed in 1863, the Royal Victoria Hospital was England’s largest building, and everyone agreed it was a most striking and elegant edifice. The hospital had its own 200 metre pier to allow troop ships to dock in deep water off the coast and transfer wounded men to the shore easily. However, medical staff soon realised that most of the wards were oriented away from the water so that most patients couldn’t enjoy the sea view and had to look out over the hospital’s support buildings behind.

The hospital wards were arranged over three storeys, and the enormous main building could house about a thousand patients with physical injuries. Those with mental health problems were accommodated less well. After the main hospital was complete, a lunatic asylum for soldiers, complete with lockable padded cells, was opened around the back. It was a far more modest building, hidden away behind a 20-foot wall to stop prying eyes, but also to prevent patients escaping. Victorian Society was very wary of psychiatric illness, and people were generally reluctant to disclose that family members had a mental health problem. In far less enlightened times, mental illness was often viewed as embarrassing or even shameful, and accordingly at Royal Victoria the asylum was given the anonymous title of ‘D Block’.

First World War
During Victoria’s reign, the hospital treated military patients from conflicts in places such as India, Afghanistan, and southern Africa. The hospital grew and acquired its own gasworks, bakery, medical school, reservoir, swimming pool, and even a ballroom for the officers. In 1900, a railway connection was made between the hospital and the main line, and when the First World War broke out this was to prove a most fortuitous development. Up to three trains per day came to the hospital, crammed with the sick and injured. The huge influx of patients placed an enormous strain on the hospital and it was soon overwhelmed. Happily, the Red Cross provided a large number of temporary wooden huts to increase the hospital’s capacity by around 2,000 patients.

Tens of thousands of military personnel were treated at the hospital during the Great War and its importance during the war was such that both Lord Kitchener and prime minister David Lloyd George paid official visits.

It is common to find ‘Netley’, ‘RVH’ or ‘RVMH’ (Royal Victoria Military Hospital) recorded as a disposition in WW1 service records. However, although they were ill these patients were still serving military personnel and were expected to obey orders for treatments even if they didn’t like them. The war poet Wilfred Owen was assessed for shell shock at Royal Victoria Hospital during World War I. He only stayed for a few days, but wrote to his wife in 1917: ‘They kept me in bed all day yesterday, but I got up for an hour and went out today, only to be re-caught and put back to bed for the inspection of a specialist.’

A high proportion of WW1 shell shock victims were treated at Netley, and the Wellcome Trust has shared a 1917 film about their treatment at the hospital https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=D1MixQbB-K0. It has been suggested that some of the evidence for shell shock ‘cures’ advocated by hospital staff was faked because doctors could not admit that they were helpless to treat many of these desperate young men.

Enemy prisoners and allied soldiers were treated here too. Unfortunately, there are no medical records for WW1 inpatients as they were all destroyed after the conflict. The government and military alike were probably keen to dispose of this appalling evidence of the destructive effects of war.

Second World War and decline
The hospital also saw significant service in the Second World War, and it received many casualties after the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. In 1941, Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, was initially treated at RVH after his famous parachute jump into Scotland. In 1944 it became a base for US forces who were preparing for what was to become the final phase of the war. American soldiers, fed up with tramping along the hospital’s lengthy main corridor used to apparently drive along it in a jeep. In the 1944-45 period, Royal Victoria Hospital admitted around 64,000 casualties from the Allied invasion of Europe. Again, unfortunately, no medical records seem to have survived from this period.

Once the war ended in 1945, the hospital began to be abandoned. It’s sheer size meant that there was no real need for it in peacetime. The building itself began to decline and a small fire in 1963 led to a repair bill that the army refused to meet. As a result, in 1966 orders were signed to simply demolish it. It’s not something we could imagine happening today: any developer would jump at the opportunity to convert this magnificent building into homes.

Some buildings did survive the bulldozers. The central chapel was saved after a campaign and is now a heritage centre and museum. The gatekeeper’s lodge and gates at the main entrance still stand, as does the handsome 1860s officers’ accommodation block, which has been converted into private flats. Part of the former army lunatic asylum is now a police training college at the rear of the site. Of these, only the chapel is now open to the public. The cemetery also remains and is a tranquil place surrounded by woodland. It contains around 3,500 graves, the earliest dating from 1864, and is the final resting place for military personnel from around the world up until World War Two, as well as hospital staff and their families. The hospital grounds are now a large country park.

Visiting the site
The remaining buildings at the Royal Victoria site now comprise a large country park which is free to visit, although admission is charged to enter the chapel museum. You can find more details online at hants.gov.uk/thingstodo/countryparks/rvcp