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As York struggled to cope with the influx of the war wounded, no fewer than 12 auxiliary hospitals were established in the city to treat those suffering both psychological and physical injuries.

Not far from the attractive suburb of Fulford where a large military hospital was based during World War One is the parish of Walmgate. During and after the war this was one of the poorest districts of the city and it became a place where limbless and psychologically traumatised men would gravitate to find cheap lodgings.

WW1 claimed the lives of an enormous number of civilian and military personnel and it also resulted in a large number of wounded. Two million British soldiers returned wounded from the war. In York military hospitals in Fulford and Haxby Road were soon accompanied by places like Bootham School and the Rowntree’s Factory, which adapted working spaces to receive and treat the injured.

Physical injury was not the only reason soldiers would be treated in York. Many of the soldiers returning suffering with terrible psychological trauma or shell-shock were treated at Bootham Park Hospital.

The war left nearly 30,000 men limbless and in 1921 over a million men were in receipt of disability pensions. Many individuals that had been left disabled and unable to work found themselves struggling to make ends meet.

Location: Walmgate, York
Image: Soldiers in front of York’s military hospital, courtesy of Dr Gavin Thomas – Fishergate, Fulford & Heslington Local History Society
Presented by Jonathan Cowap

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