Booklet on Kitchener Military Hospital, Brighton, 1917-18

The souvenir booklet which belonged to Vernon St.John, 6th Viscount Bolingbroke, contains photographic views of the General Kitchener Hospital in Brighton, Sussex. It includes ten images of the hospital and two of Brighton.

Vernon St.John and Snowdon Lane were patients at the hospital during World War I and home for both men was Lydiard Tregoze. Snowden spent four weeks recovering from his injuries there during October and November 1917 and Vernon was hospitalised there for a least four months from April 1918.

Brighton was considered a convenient position for hospitals due to its relative proximity to the battlefields of France. The Kitchener Hospital was converted from the town's workhouse and opened in February 2015 as a hospital for Indian soldiers. The largest of Brighton's World War I hospitals, it could accommodate up to 2,000 patients. It is said that the guns of war could be heard from the grounds of the building.

By the time Snowdon Lane was being treated, the 10th Canadian Hospital had moved into the building. Given it was a new facility the hospital benefited from the latest medical equipment and unique facilities including a psychiatric ward. Vernon St.John was suffering from shellshock which is perhaps why he was allocated a place which specifically catered for soldiers with psychiatric disorders.