A new postcard has been added to the Princess Louise Hopsital page, in the Chawton Park Hospital section of the website.

The photograph was taken by someone stood in what is today the grounds of the Chawton Park Indoor Bowling Club, looking across Chawton Park road towards the hospital. Today this is the Community Hospital & the Treloar estate.

A Military hospital was built to help with the treatment of wounded soldiers from the 2nd Boer War (1899-1902) known as the A.M.B. or Absent-Minded Beggar Hospital. HRH Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll (Queen Victoria’s Daughter) took an interest in the Hospital from the beginning, visiting on several occasions, including the 19th of October 1900, as reported in the Hants & Sussex Gazette on the 24th October:

‘On Friday afternoon the Princess Louise, who was accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Argyle, paid a private visit to the A.M.B. Hospital Camp at Alton. Mr Balch, the manager, met the Royal party when they alighted from the 2.48 p.m. train, and drove over with them to the Hospital Camp. A through inspection was made of the buildings, and the Princess was able to appreciate the great progress made with the works since her last visit*. The party were much interested in seeing the men at work. Refreshments were provided in one of the wards from the "Swan" Hotel, Alton. The Royal party left for town by the 5.30 train, driving straight from the works to the station. The visit was altogether unknown in the town.’

*Princess Louise paid a private visit to the site in July 1900

However, behind the scenes things appeared to be at a standstill, there were periods of time, when literally nothing was happening. Inevitably postponing the completion of the Camp, to such an extent that the hospital was not fully completed and never accepted a single patient by the end of the 2nd Boer War.

At some point it was agreed that the hospital would be renamed the Princess Louise Hospital, and that HRH Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll would visit for the official opening, on the 16th July 1903. The Princess visited Alton on numerous occasions over the next couple of years, during one visit in 1904, she promised to send a photograph for the centre panel of the Hospital Chapel reredos.

Unfortunately, the Princess Louise Hospital was not to last, over the next 2 years numerous faults came to light, leading to the abandonment and ‘temporary’ closure of the hospital by late 1905. In January 1906, several newspapers carried articles about the events. Including this one, from the 5th January edition of the Hampshire Post:

‘The Princess Louise Hospital is being closed for repairs and other improvements which it is estimated will be several months in hand. The patients were removed to Aldershot on Wednesday. It is at present uncertain whether the Hospital will again be used as hitherto, notwithstanding its distance from Aldershot and Bordon, or utilised as a convalescent home.’

That could have been the end of the hospital, luckily the site came to the attention of Sir William Treloar and following an act of Parliament (The Alton Military Hospital Act 1907) he acquired it to open a hospital for the treatment of children suffering from tuberculosis of the bones or joints and a college ‘to train crippled boys in skilled handicrafts to enable them to earn their own living’.

The first patients arrived on the 8th of September 1908…