47. Aussie v. pommie tensions : Joyce Green Hospital.

Key words/phrases : Aussie and pommie soldiers, the Australian Army Nursing Service, Sydney Hospital School of Nursing, the 3rd Australian Army Auxiliary Hospital, Jessie Tomlin, Fred Tomlin, 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment, war-related nerves and neurotic conditions, Joyce Green Hospital cricket ground, The Orchard Military Convalescent Hospital, stone-throwing Dartford civilians.

No. 47

“There have been riots in Dartford between Aussie soldiers and civilians during the past three nights and extra police and others have now been drafted into the town to keep order. In fact Dartford town centre is now completely out of bounds to us Aussies. We, the other sisters and I, now have to get signed passes from our Commanding Officer before we can leave the hospital and for our own safety we all have to be back here by 7.0 p.m. and so going to the theatre and some of the other things we enjoy are completely out of the question at the moment.

An ambulance was held up by pommie civilians last night too and it was only because a couple of our Sisters were on board that was it allowed to continue on its journey, and even then it was stoned as it moved on !”

Race riots in Dartford ?! Not exactly ! No ... these words formed part of a letter from an Australian nurse working on the combined Orchard Hospital/Joyce Green Hospital site to her brother during the Spring of 1919.

Jessie Tomlins (whose Father originally moved to Australia from Shropshire) had joined the Australia Army Nursing Service in 1919 - after completing her nurse’s training at Sydney Hospital - and had promptly been posted to Dartford to work in the 3rd Australian Army Auxiliary Hospital (which was what the Orchard Hospital was called at that time).

At the same time Jessie’s brother Fred was a soldier in the 1st Australian Light Horse Regiment in Palestine and/or Egypt and the lines penned above were some of the many written by this young Australian nurse (although in fact she was a commissioned officer), to her brother who was serving in the Middle East.

Jessie Tomlins was based on the Orchard/Joyce Green Hospital site for two months between 27 April - 27 June 1919 alongside a contingent of Aussie nurses.

World War I had produced thousands of wounded soldiers in Europe and many, many of them had been evacuated to England for treatment or simply to recover.

Not many of us are aware of the fact but the total number of world-wide casualties arising from the 1st World War was - wait for it - 27.5 MILLION souls ! Not only is this a breathtaking figure in its own right but perhaps it is also begins to give some slight idea of the scope of the evacuation programme that was required to get vast numbers of injured servicemen and women out of the various continental battle zones and into more peaceful surroundings.

According to Army records the results of this conflictproduced countless soldiers suffering from “war-related nerves and neurotic conditions” and from historical accounts it seems that the Orchard Hospital (which was situated on the area of the Joyce Green Hospital cricket ground) earned itself a reputation for its good work in this particular sphere of rehabilitation.

What was once called The Orchard Military Convalescent Hospital (which contained 1,200 beds in 75 ‘huts’ built on either side of a central roadway) was loaned by the British government to the Australian military authorities in 1916 and eventually numbered 1,400 beds.

However to return to Jessie Tomlin’s earlier comments it seems that one of the results of having an Army Hospital based on the Joyce Green site was the creation of a palpable degree of social unrest. Why was this ? Well because on returning to Dartford a large number of “Tommy” soliders found that some of their sweethearts had either ‘become engaged to’ or had married Aussie soldiers !

It’s not hard to imagine that dealing with stone-throwing Dartfordians was NOT something that Jessie Tomlin and her fellow nurses had been taught how to deal with during their nurse’s training at the Sydney Hospital School of Nursing .

It seems that Sister Tomlin only stayed at the Orchard Hospital for 2 months before she was transferred elsewhere but I wonder what long-term memories of Dartford and these two hospitals remained with her when she left England and returned to live in Australia ?

Her letters at least tell us that she was certainly touched by the calm and natural beauty of the apple orchards on the site, after which the Orchard Hospital was named. Maybe the orchards inspired some of the mentally traumatised soldiers too ?

I'm sure though that these physically and mentally scarred men would have been glad to have received at least some of their care from Australian nurses such as Jessie Tomlin ?