}
Patients from the Bristol Lunatic Asylum
‘The lunatics are good workers & one persists in saluting us & always with the wrong hand’
Letter from Stanley Spencer, Royal Army Medical Corps orderly at Beaufort War Hospital, 1915
Men wounded in battle were transferred to Bristol for treatment and recuperation. The peacetime hospitals did not have enough beds to cope with the wounded soldiers, so 14 temporary war hospitals were established across the city. In 1915 the Bristol Lunatic Asylum in Fishponds was taken over and became the Beaufort War Hospital. Most of the patients were moved out, although 45 stayed to work in the gardens and the hospital. About 850 patients, many of whom had lived there for years, were sent to other asylums in the South West. Another 23 were discharged to the Bristol Workhouse, despite their vulnerable state. Most of them were elderly and did not survive for long in the harsh conditions of the workhouse.
Men wounded in battle were transferred to Bristol for treatment and recuperation. The peacetime hospitals did not have enough beds to cope with the wounded soldiers, so 14 temporary war hospitals were established across the city. In 1915 the Bristol Lunatic Asylum in Fishponds was taken over and became the Beaufort War Hospital. Most of the patients were moved out, although 45 stayed to work in the gardens and the hospital. About 850 patients, many of whom had lived there for years, were sent to other asylums in the South West. Another 23 were discharged to the Bristol Workhouse, despite their vulnerable state. Most of them were elderly and did not survive for long in the harsh conditions of the workhouse.