Leighton Buzzard Nursing Association

Nurse Burchell, midwife, at Billington c.1927 [PCBillington19/77]

Monday 11th February 1918: The Leighton Buzzard Nursing Association held its annual meeting today at 11 Hartwell Crescent. Members heard that over the past year the services of the two nurses provided by the Association had been much appreciated and their work had been excellent. The nurses’ report showed that they had attended 204 cases during the year, including 44 midwifery and 14 maternity.  One nurse has been helping the Health Visitor at sessions held every two weeks at the Infant Welfare Centre, which opened in March. The Association’s funds were placed under some strain by the extra expense of providing a midwife, but this had been alleviated by a gift of £20 from the committee of the Invalid Kitchen, who had also given milk and Bovril for the patients.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 19th February 1918

Luton Doctor in Egypt

Bute Hospital ward 1913 [Z1306/75/5/3]

Monday 15th January 1917: News has reached us of Dr. Robert Daniels Bell, a respected Luton medical man. Before the war Dr. Bell had a practice in Dunstable Road, and also worked with the Bute Hospital, the Children’s Hospital, and the Luton Union House. For the past year he has been serving in Egypt the Royal Army Medical Corps. While home on leave Dr. Bell has told the Saturday Telegraph:

“I saw a lot of the Luton boys. They were among the pluckiest, the cheeriest, and the most determined out there, despite the fact that the lads I saw were probably wounded or invalided. Several of them recognised me, and they all asked me how Luton was getting on. They had been away a very long time. I am afraid the soldiers who get out to places like Egypt and Mesopotamia are not so much thought of as those nearer home. It is believed that they have an easy time of it, but in those tropical climates they have a lot to put up with. It is a hard existence in the desert, and I hope those at home will show as great kindnesses to our lads out there as to those elsewhere, for they deserve it.”

 Dr. Bell has decided to continue his work with the military, but does not yet know whether he will be sent back to Egypt or to France. On entering his second year of service he will receive promotion to the rank of Captain. He has also expressed his thanks to his colleagues in Luton who will continue to carry on his medical practice in his absence, although “very much overworked”.[1]

Source: Luton News 11th January 1917

[1] Dr. Bell entered medical practice at Dunstable Road in 1906/7. For his second term of service he was sent to France, where he was gassed  later in 1917. He was mentioned in dispatches and after the war was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry and distinguished service in the field in March 1918. By the time he died in the 1930s the practice was based at Liverpool Road and was served by four doctors; in the late 1930s it moved to a purpose built surgery at 163 Dunstable Road. The surgery was renamed Bell House Medical Centre in 2002 in honour of Dr. Bell. [History of Bell House Medical Centre]

A Belgian Surgeon Visits Luton

Joseph Clottens

Friday 13th August 1915: One of the Belgian refugees in Luton, Monsieur Clottens,  has received a visit from his brother Joseph Clottens who is on leave from his work as assistant surgeon for the Belgian Red Cross at Calais. At the beginning of the war Joseph Clottens attended wounded soldiers at Antwerp. He was taken prisoner and interned by the Germans with other doctors and with officers from Britain, France and Russia. The barracks at Heidelburg were far too small for the numbers sent there and seven men had to share each small cell; the food was atrocious in both quantity and quality. M. Clottens was released in an exchange of prisoners and returned to his work as a surgeon. He has expressed himself delighted with the reception he has received in Luton where his brother now works at Kent’s.

Source: Luton Times 13 August 1915

The Effects of Gas

Gassed, by John Singer Sargent, 1918 (Wikimedia)

Sunday 30th May 1915: Mr Brown of Silsoe, who is serving in France as an ambulance driver, has written home describing events which took place last weekend:

“The Germans had been using that dreadful gas again;[1] we have to go right up to the firing line. It was something dreadful, we were under shell and rifle fire all the time. It was night time when we were there, and it was just like as if the whole sky was on fire, the noise was terrible. We could not hear one another speak, and had to drive without lights not daring to strike a match or smoke, if we did, as sure as I am writing we should have been killed … Just as we got our last load of wounded and were starting off, someone struck a match, and the Germans immediately put six shells at us in succession, but fortunately they all went to the right of us so we escaped. Our poor soldiers, when we got them to the nearest hospital, which was about three miles away, we had to lay them out on the grass, which is the best treatment for gas cases, but, poor fellows, they are doubled up in a heap, and their moaning is something awful … I had only eight hours sleep out of those three days, we were all completely knocked up; my mate fainted away and was quite done up. The doctor says his nerves are affected by the continual noise of the guns … I have just got a slice of good luck, there are about ten of us picked out to clear the wounded from the three big clearing hospitals, and I am one of them; we are about five miles from the nearest firing line – I am pleased, no mistake.”

Source: Monthly Magazine for the parishes of Barton-le-Cley, Clophill, Flitton and Greenfield, Gravenhurst, Silsoe, Westoning, July 1915 [P21/30/17]

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[1] Chlorine gas was first used at the 2nd Battle of Ypres against the French on 22nd April 1915.