WWI REMEMBERED 100 years of history as city house a haven for war wounded

ROOKWOOD was built in 1866 by Sir Edward Stock Hill, a partner in Charles Hill and Sons, shipbuilders and ship owners of Bristol. Edward had come to Cardiff to supervise the acquisition and improvement of a graving dock and shipbuilding yard on the west side of the East Bute Docks.

He built Rookwood in the year that he married.

By 1918, the house was unoccupied and up for sale for £20,000.

Sir Edward died in 1902 and Lady Hill and her eldest daughter, Mabel, were living in Charlton Kings, Gloucestershire.

Mabel’s siblings were also married and living in England.

Over time, the Rookwood estate had been mothballed.

With the failure to sell the house and the estate, it must have been a relief when, in February 1918, a letter was received from Maud Purnell inquiring whether the house could be leased for use as a hospital for the duration of the war.

Maud Alice Purnell was a force to be reckoned with.

She was the eldest daughter of Philip Morel – a founder of the Morel Shipping Line, one of the biggest and most valuable fleets operating from Cardiff in the latter half of the 1800s.

Maud was a well-known figure in south Wales.

She had married Ivor Purnell in 1913 after the death of her first husband, and on the outbreak of the war had thrown herself into work for the Red Cross.

With the siting of the 3rd Western General Hospital at Howard Gardens, Cardiff was a major centre for the receipt of wounded brought by boat and rail from France and Belgium.

As a result, there was a need for satellite hospitals where those discharged from the military hospitals could be cared for while they convalesced.

This was a role taken on board by the Red Cross.

During the course of the war, in Glamorgan alone, there were 48 Red Cross hospitals.

On marrying Ivor Purnell, Maud gave her address as Lavernock House, Penarth, and was certainly involved with and probably ran the Red Cross Hospital at Lavernock House.

However, by 1918 the house was required by the authorities to provide extra beds for patients at the King Edward VII Hospital in Cardiff.

Maud was therefore looking for suitable premises to establish a new hospital and in a letter to Lady Hill asked for a quick decision on her application for a lease.

She wrote: “Of course I am leaving it to Mr Alexander to agree any reasonable rent but I am writing this to assure you that in the event of our coming to terms I should be living in the house in entire charge myself and am bearing all the expenses, except the army grant per officer. I shall be responsible that no damage will be done at all to your beautiful property.”

The very first hospital at Rookwood was to be, therefore, a Red Cross hospital but reserved exclusively for the care of officers.

By April 8 terms were agreed, with Mrs Purnell securing the lease for her hospital for a fee of £500 a year for an initial 12-month period with an agreement that the lease would end six months after the end of the war.

Until the autumn of 1918 the war was still very much in the balance and the wounded were still streaming into Cardiff.

No doubt the extra weekly premium paid for the care of officers would have helped to balance the books.

The house was evidently in a poor state of repair. Ivor Purnell noted: “A considerable amount of the wall papering is in very bad condition” and it was proposed “to strip or distemper over wherever necessary for cleanliness”.

Anyone visiting would have been confronted by the formidable figure of Mrs Purnell in her red Commandant’s uniform, supported by a quartermaster, matron and cook.

The hospital would have been staffed, primarily, by Red Cross nurses in blue dresses with starched white collars and linen over-sleeves.

By 1918 styles were changing and it was agreed that the hem of the dress could be as much as six inches above the ground. Transport and stretcher work was usually carried out by male volunteers, again dressed in blue military-style uniforms.

Not everything, smoothly.

On May 16, 1918, the Western Mail reported that Mrs Purnell and Ruth Hibbert “were summoned in Cardiff on Wednesday for using a car in Cardiff in contravention of the petrol restriction order”.

In her defence Mrs Purnell claimed she was on official business taking one of her nurses, Miss Ruth Hibbert, home. However, Ruth was no ordinary however, went nurse. She was Mrs Purnell’s daughter by her first marriage.

The authorities were not convinced by her story and Mrs Purnell was fined £10 and Ruth Hibbert was cautioned.

A photograph held at the Glamorgan Archives may be the only photographic record of the Rookwood Red Cross Hospital.

It shows five servicemen facing the camera. The picture is captioned “The Llandaff Knuts, April 1918.”

The five men are in the standard uniform worn by soldiers when in hospital – blue jackets with white lapels and lining, white shirt, red tie and regimental caps.

Only one of the men is identified, John Swallow, sitting on the left at the front.

The evidence is not conclusive but it is likely that this is Lieutenant John Kinder Swallow of the Sherwood Foresters and the five were part of the first batch of officers cared for at Rookwood.

The term “knut” came from a