Unity and Loyalty: The Story of Chippenham’s Red Cross Hospital (Chippenham Studies 5)

In November 1915 the Chippenham Red Cross Convalescent Hospital opened in response to rapidly increasing numbers of wounded men returning from the battlefields of the Great War. This book follows events in Chippenham, a relatively small north Wiltshire town, that led to the opening of the Hospital. It describes in detail the people of the district who gave so many hours to care for the patients and make them feel welcome in the town. Inevitably there is sadness but also joy, the recurring theme is of a ‘Happy Home Hospital’. The Hospital changed the lives of both staff and patients and this book follows some of those changes after the Armistice. Profusely illustrated in colour, the book derives from a highly successful exhibition mounted by staff and volunteers of Chippenham Museum and, although concerned principally with the hospital, it chronicles many other aspects of the town and its people through a devastating war.