The Bevan Military Hospital | Beach Rocks Convalescent Home

The London Samaritan Society opened a convalescent home in 1892, a charitable institution, presumably to nurse Londoners in the more healthy climate of the South Coast. It was formerly known as Beach Rocks Convalescent Home and cost about £23,000 to build. In 1900 its name was changed to the Alfred Bevan Memorial Home in memory of the late Sir Alfred Henry Bevan, Sheriff of the City of London.

The main front of the building faced south and consisted of a central building with wings, east and west, and balconies running round where patients who are capable may sit to inhale the sea breezes. A broad flight of steps lead down to the sea. It was tastefully decorated and could accommodate 250 patients.

"In addition to its many Sea-wards, the Central Court is entirely devoted to Open-air treatment, and here the most obstinate cases of septic poisoning have been rapidly cured. So much, indeed, are patients benefited by their sojourn here, that whenever any of them, for one reason or another, have been moved indoors, they have invariably begged, even in winter weather, to be taken back" Excerpt taken from "The Bevan Military Hospital and The First Arrivals of Wounded".

During the South African War the home was used for convalescing British soldiers, who were brought to Sandgate Station and then transferred by horse-drawn bus to the Bevan Memorial Home.

The home become the Bevan Military Hospital during the First World War, and all the staff worked unstintingly and were universally congratulated. The organisation under the Military Medical Organisation was lead by Sister R Mumford whose title was Commandant of the Bevan Nursing Home.

"Since the date of its opening, the number of wounded soldiers successfully treated within the Hospital has reached a total of over 6,000, of whom more than 2,000 have been Canadians. Of the grand total, which includes some hundreds of Belgians, the very great majority have been discharged cured. Of the thirty-two who have given their lives for their country and passed away within the walls of the Hospital, the primary causes of death in seven cases can be traced directly to diseases contacted previous to the War, and one to tetanus". Excerpt taken from "The Bevan Military Hospital and The First Arrivals of Wounded".

In the Kelly's Directory of 1937 there is an advertisement for the Bevan Nursing Home offering 'Medical, Surgical, Maternity & Massage fully equipped X-Ray & Theatre and fully trained nurses'. Miss M R Mumford was still in charge. However, in March 1938 after a short illness she died, and in the announcement in the paper, she is still described as Commandant of the Bevan Nursing Home. The title of Commandant was given to her during the first World War when the Bevan was incorporated to the Military Hospital, Shorncliffe.

When the second World War occurred the staff of the Bevan again performed to an equal high standard and were commended for their sterling work for the wounded service men.

Captain Francis Bennett-Goldney, President of the Bevan Military Hospital commended the work of the staff with the words: "If absolute forgetfulness of self and splendid devotion to duty are to be counted, as undoubtedly in justice they must be, then assuredly those who have made the success of the Bevan Military Hospital an accomplished fact should never be forgotten in the national remembrance".

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Content for Sandgate-Kent Local History pages is mostly taken from 'Rise and Progress of a Village" - by Linda Réne-Martin