WORLD WAR I; NURSING.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Photograph album compiled at the Princess Christian's Auxiliary Hospital. An intimate and evocative album of personal and professional shots, inscribed, "Ethel T. Shepherd, The Princess Christian Hospital, Norwood, 1915". Shepherd was an assistant nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment, and in 1919 received the Royal Red Cross, Second Class.The hospital was opened on 24 March 1915 in the former premises of the Court Royal Hotel, South Norwood. It had 52 beds and was run by the London/82 VAD, who provided a matron and four sisters, seen posing in the first photograph. The album documents the patients, staff, and wards with individual and group shots. One shows a man in bed with a cigar box violin, surrounded by nurses wearing St John's Ambulance armbands. Another shows "Johnny in D Ward" on crutches with one leg; a further spotlights a pair called "The Heavenly Twins". Private Joshua Lord, DCM, is pictured with the nurses, holding a black cat toy. The final photographs record the hospital decorated for Christmas. The first two shots are signed "Swaine" and the following four are stamped with his address in purple on the verso. Frank Arthur Swaine was a high-society photographer in the early 1900s, likely taking these photographs for the war effort.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.