Somerville Section – 3rd Southern General Hospital 1914-18

3rd-southern-general-hospitalAn unremarkable view of House, at first glance, taken in high summer. But instead of a student wheeling her bicycle on the right, it’s an injured soldier in his Bath Chair, and hospital beds have been placed in the shade of the tree. This is from a postcard series of ‘No.965 Somerville Section 3rd Southern General Hospital’, issued after the College was requisitioned by the War Office in Hilary, 1915.  Somerville  was thought particuarly suitable for convalescent officers and was dedicated for this purpose in 1916.  Somerville students were rehoused in an empty wing of Oriel College but many volunteered to help at the hospital in their spare time.  Some famous patients of the Somerville Section of 3rd Southern General Hospital were Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves.