Moving to Sidcup

The conventional story about the instigation of the Sidcup unit was that it became necessary because of the volume of cases being received at Aldershot, particularly after the Battle of the Somme. But this may not entirely be the case.

Our original Archivist, plastic surgeon Antony Wallace, had been a civilian consultant to the Army in his youth. Sources revealed to him that all had not been well at the Military hospital, nor amongst the residents of Aldershot. 

Technically, the injured soldiers remained on active duty. Thus, the Army insisted upon taking them upon twice weekly marches through the town. For this purpose, some were forced to wear crude tin masks covering their yet-to-be-repaired disfigurement. These marches were resented by both soldiers and residents. The Sergeant Majors hated taking them. Eventually it seems, the servicemen began to rebel, throwing their masks down in the street. The residents also became fearful, hiding inside whenever they heard whistling in the streets, and complained. 

Capacity at Aldershot was full. Despite the requisition of various private houses, such as Waverley Abbey, to cope with the numbers an alternative was urgently sought and, through contacts, notification to Keogh and Arbuthnot Lane of the sale of Frognal House and its grounds in Sidcup resulted in its purchase.  The site was large enough and had excellent transport links to the Channel ports. But the hospital had still to be built, not due for completion until the middle of 1917. Worried by an incipient mutiny, it seems likely that the military authorities sped up the transfer of patients. This would explain why the first patients were moved two months before the official opening of the Queen’s Hospital in August 1917

No records of this supposedly hastily arranged move have been found, and we are led to believe that the Army covered up the incident, either burying or destroying documents. So, we may never know whether the transfer of plastic surgery services to Sidcup was an entirely planned event, one brought forward by events, or entirely forced by events.