MEDICAL TREATMENT
Responding to the rise in facial injuries, surgeon Harold Gillies established the world’s first hospital dedicated to their treatment in Sidcup, Kent. The high number of cases meant techniques developed and improved rapidly. Sidcup was a place of great innovation and kindness, but its patients still faced challenges.
“The science of healing stood baffled before the science of destroying”
ELLEN LA MOTTE, AMERICAN NURSE, 1916
A PIONEERING SURGEON
Harold Gillies (© BAPRAS)
Harold Gillies was a New Zealand surgeon who trained at Cambridge University before the war.
Posted to France with the Red Cross in 1915, Gillies assisted dentist Auguste Charles Valadier in an operating theatre close to the frontline.
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Here, he witnessed the rise in horrific facial wounds, but also the potential of new techniques to help with them.
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Inspired by the work being carried out at the front, on his return to England later in 1915,
Gillies set up a special ward for face wounds at the Cambridge
Military Hospital, Aldershot.
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He even created his own casualty labels for the field hospitals in France, ensuring that men with facial injuries were sent directly to him.​
The ward, however, rapidly proved inadequate for the number of men needing treatment.
Casualty label for Sapper W Douglas, headed to Britain (Gillies Archive).
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Gillies's labels would have looked similar
to this.
"At Rouen, I had been marked with a label, Cambridge Hospital, Aldershot, which was the chief place for face wounds. But on the boat they said that there was no room there, so I was sent up to London."
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LT. JOHN GLUBB, HIT IN THE JAW, SEP 1917
By 1916, Gillies had convinced his medical chiefs that an entire hospital dedicated to facial injuries was required to meet the scale of the problem.
THE QUEEN'S HOSPITAL
In 1917, Gillies established The Queen’s Hospital at Frognal House in Sidcup, Kent.
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It was the world’s first hospital dedicated solely to the treatment of facial injuries.
Funded largely by public donations, the hospital and its sister convalescent sites provided more than 1000 beds for men returning from war with face wounds.
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Between 1917-1921, the hospital treated over 5000 servicemen with reconstructive surgery and occupational therapy.​
Architectural drawing of The Queen's Hospital (© BAPRAS)
TRIAL AND ERROR
Watch this video to learn about the pioneering plastic surgery that took place at Sidcup.
No hospital in France
or Germany was ever dedicated to face injuries.
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Results were generally poorer than in Britain as no surgeon dealt with many cases and there was not the volume of patients to experiment with new techniques.
Click to expand
"[Gillies's] greeting one morning was, 'Well, Paddy, your big day is here. What sort of nose do you think we ought to give you?' He made various sketches of me […] with different shaped noses. 'I'm not fussy, sir.' I said, and he decided I should have a Roman nose, as my face was rather round."
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TROOPER HORACE SEWELL, KICKED IN THE FACE BY A HORSE ​
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"Shall I whisper a secret to you? I’m afraid of getting well. The sooner I recover the sooner ‘out there’ I go again, and frankly I don’t want to go."
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PRIVATE PERCY CLARE, LETTER TO HIS MOTHER WHILE AT THE QUEEN'S
LIFE AT THE QUEEN'S
Forward-thinking for his time, Gillies was aware that happier patients often fared better.
​​​​​Alongside fears of being sent back to the front, men could struggle to come to terms with their changed appearances. Keeping patients content became one of Gillies's principal concerns.
Leisure and fun were encouraged by all the staff. Sports days and football matches were arranged; picnics were held in the grounds; patients even performed plays and fancy dress shows for each other.
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Gillies's mischievous
alter ego ‘Dr Scroggy’ would appear at night to encourage patients to break the rules.
Dr Scroggy would encourage the smuggling of alcohol; gamble with patients; and - drawn from his office by the smell of cooking - order food from patients who had broken into the kitchen after hours.
​Aware of the often long periods of recovery between operations, Gillies also quickly realised that boredom would be one of the biggest challenges for patients.
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Unlike other hospitals, the Queen's offered workshops to keep patients occupied and improve their employment prospects after the war.
'Sidcup: The Toymakers' Workshop', J H Lobley, 1918, (IWM ART 3756)
"Extensive gardens and a farm of 100 acres are attached to the house, where they, with a view to their future employment, will be instructed in outdoor occupations, such as gardening, market-gardening, dairy work, poultry keeping, forestry etc. In addition, workshops will be provided for practical instruction in Estate Carpentry and other handicrafts and work in connection with Electricity, Agricultural Machinery and Motor Traction … no effort must be spared to give these men – many of them lads – a fresh interest and a new start in life … and make them realise they are not useless wrecks."
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ROTHERHAM ADVERTISER, JAN 1917
In France, a self-help
group was set up by the facially-wounded ("Union des Blessés de la Face et de la Tête").
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Historian Andrew Bamji argues that the approach at Sidcup meant this wasn't needed in Britain. The concentration of facial injury patients in one place meant a peer support group was established as soon as men arrived.
Occupational Activities, July 1921
Course
No. on course
Toy making
Woodwork
Commercial
Beadwork
Boot repairing
Poultry farming
French
Dentistry
Hairdressing
Cinema operating
Bookbinding
Motor engineering
Draughtmanship
Watch/Clock repairing
Photography
Horticulture
Coach building
322
253
120
67
23
22
9
5
4
4
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
Adapted from A Bamji, Faces from the Front.
Explore these photos and paintings of life at the Queen’s Hospital.
The Queen’s was vastly different to hospitals like Frensham Hill in Surrey, where patients did little more than smoke cigarettes and huddle around an inadequate stove.​​​​
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"On arrival a nurse assisted me to undress and get into bed. Sister came round with hot milk. Men came around the bed to enquire about me. They all seemed just one happy family, each thinking of the other fellow’s welfare … I lay staring at the shaded light which threw a soft warm glow all down the centre of the ward and spread over the polished wood floor … I was so happy on that first night in the comfortable cosy ward, beautifully wide, with many beds and bright congenial company, that, in spite of my fatigue, I couldn’t sleep a wink ... Sidcup was indeed a paradise to me when I arrived."
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PRIVATE PERCY CLARE, TRANSFERRED FROM FRENSHAM HILL TO THE QUEEN'S, DEC 1917
The approach at Sidcup is a testament to Gillies’s deep understanding
of the challenges men with facial injuries encountered.
"There could not have been a more appropriate
place for those kinds of patients."
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NELLIE CRYER, NURSE AT THE QUEEN'S HOSPITAL
Two Queen's patients smile in their progress photographs (Harold Gillies, Plastic Surgery of the Face, 1920, public domain)
CONCLUSION
Astonishing advancements were made in the treatment of facial injuries during the First World War, and the holistic approach of the Queen's Hospital meant its patients found a great deal of support.
Yet these men still struggled whilst undergoing medical treatment. They feared being sent back to the front and were apprehensive about reactions to their changed appearances when they returned home.
Indeed, while the Queen's Hospital offered a rare environment in which every resident had a facial difference, life with a face injury in Britain beyond the hospital walls was an altogether more complicated affair.