Online Collection

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No 15 Ambulance Train, 1915

Photograph by Lieutenant-Colonel Howard H C Dent, World War One, Western Front, 1915.

A railway carriage acting as an isolation ward for soldiers with contagious diseases. This ambulance train included ward cars for transporting casualties, accommodation for the doctors and nurses onboard, a carriage equipped with an operating theatre, as well as a kitchen and linen store.

Ambulance trains had been used in South Africa during the Boer War (1899-1902). The first ambulance trains on the Western Front were conversions of French rolling stock. Ambulance Train No 12 was the first purpose-built British Army ambulance train. No 15, the train in this picture, was paid for by voluntary contribution and was named after Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (1846-1923), one of the main fund-raisers.

'The British Journal of Nursing', of 10 April 1915, described the 'Princess Christian Hospital Train', standing in London's Paddington Station, as 'a complete hospital on wheels'. The report continues, 'The train, which was constructed from the design of Sir John Furley and Mr William J. Fieldhouse, by the Birmingham Railway Carriage Co., is undoubtedly the most complete and convenient which has yet been built. It is constructed to carry 400 patients'.

From an album of photographs, inscribed, 'Photographs taken at the Front 1915 H.H.C. Dent OC 1/3 North Midland Field Ambulance RAMC 46 Division'.

NAM Accession Number

NAM. 1986-06-77--105

Copyright/Ownership

Not NAM Copyright, Artist's Estate

Location

National Army Museum, Study collection

Object URL

https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1986-06-77--105