Clopton House and War Hospital, Stratford-upon-Avon

Description

Scrapbook kept by Avis Hodgson, daughter of Rev Francis and Elizabeth, of Clopton House, which begins during the years that Clopton House was used as a hospital during World War I. This opened in May 1915 and closed in May 1919, and both Avis and her mother worked there as nurses. This might be the only surviving one of several albums as it begins with an entry for 31 August 1918, recording the arrival of the twenty-ninth convoy of the wounded. All sixty-four arrivals are named, nearly all of them privates, and fifty of them stretcher cases. Details of the wards to which they were assigned (Wills, Douty and Gibbins) are also given together with the names of the nursing staff who tended them. This is followed by a page or two of photographs of the soldiers, individually or in groups, and then by similar details for the thirtieth convoy which arrived in October, and so on. Although peace was declared in November 1918 further convoys, all carefully recorded, continued to arrive until 27 March 1919. Following the closure of the hospital at Clopton, Avis went on to work at St Dunstan's, in London, set up for men who had lost their sight as a result of war injuries. The album charts her experiences there by means of photographs and newscuttings of sporting events and activities which in some ways are more poignant than those taken at the Clopton hospital. One of Avis's specialities was to act as a cox at regattas in which teams from St Dunstan's took part. However, she kept up her old contacts through attendance at Clopton Hospital re-union dinners in Stratford, details of which are also recorded. But the most interesting photographs of all record the start of a 25-mile walking race which she helped organise, from Clopton House to Handsworth in Birmingham on 18 April 1923. Members of the Birmingham Walking Club and the Birchfield Harriers were drafted in to help escort the seventeen midlands entrants from St Dunstan's who set off from Clopton at middday. Six men completed the course, the winner, W. Trott arriving at the finishing point in just over five and a half hours, at a very creditable average speed of around four miles an hour. The album proper finishes in 1923 but loosely inserted two letters dated 1925: one from the War Office thanking Rev Francis Hodgson for his account of the 'splendid work' of the War Hospital and another from George Macleaod of Toc H; Also inserted are regatta programmes which show that Avis continued to act as a cox at the St Dunstan's Regattas until at least 1934.

NOTE: This scrapbook is temporarily closed, pending completion of preservation and conservation work, to stabilise very fragile condition of album and its contents. Surrogate copies of many of the items contained in the scrapbook are available for viewing. Please contact scla@shakespeare.org.uk for further information.