Hello, I would like to hear your comments and views. Please get in touch especially if you have any memories or stories to tell about the Hospital or relatives that are buried in the Cemetery. I would be glad to forward photos of graves to family members too.
My contact details are jd.green@outlook.com
Thank You
Fascinating and absorbing website. Looking for a record of Leslie George Mantle who died at the RVH on March 28th. 1914 and was buried on 31st. March. Served with the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
My ancestor Thomas NASH of the 76th Regiment of Foot died in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Hound on 12 April 1875. Looking to establish whether he is buried in the Netley Military Cemetery.
Trained as RMN at RVH Netley 1970 to 1973. Commanding Officer Brig Harry Pozner, Company Commanders Frank Green and Ashley Cogdall. Great memories. Ron Bridle RAF.
Thank you for such a brilliant site. I came here looking for family member's Billingham's and Abell's. Ended up spending hours reading about the history of Netley Hospital and surrounding areas. I took intrest also in the Remount Centre.
A great site full of information and so interesting
We visited today what a wonderful country park the chapel is amazing and the cemetery very humbling to see soldiers of all nationalities buried together thanks to you trying to bring all that history back to life
arthur daniel males my nans father conveleced there then stayed to help
Many thanks for this super website. I learnt a lot and saw pictures of my 4x gt grandpa John Mackenzie Kennedy & 3x gt grandpa William C Le P. M-Kennedy
Thank you for this wonderful website. My 4 x great grandpa was John Mackenzie Kennedy paymaster at Netley. I have learnt so much from your website & copied his & his son's photos. BTW who is the Angus that you thanked for the info on John MK?
My name is Brenda Mary Patrick. My mother's maiden name was Thora Alaque Skyring. She was an army nurse serving overseas with the troops in World War 2. She passed away a few months short of 97 years in 2010. She shared many accurate facts about her family history. The relative of ours in Netley Cemetery is John Skyring Cross who was the younger brother of a famous Australian poet, author & journalist Zora Cross. She wrote some moving & famous poems after the death of her brother. Many people in the UK may be unaware of how celebrated he became in death.
I have just come across your website in tracking my ancestor William Campbell Maclean. I have a copy of his book 'Memories of a Long Life', which was privately printed in 1895. I have also inherited his medals.
I didn't know he was buried in Southampton and will try to pay a visit to his grave.
Hi, thank you so much for the web site. My grandfather a William Henry Bevan, DOB 1/5/1896 was admitted to Netley with a leg injury and stayed there for 18 months. I have a number of photos of his time there and a beautiful embroided Devonshire Regiment cap badge which he did whilst convalescing. I would love to find out more information but understand the lack of records. Maybe I can give some copies of the photos, if you would like. I love relatively close and would love to visit.
Hello Excellent website and so much commitment by all concerned. Such history. Hoping that you have no developers trying to build houses or similar on the cemetery for the former patients as we have here in Whalley with a crematorium being passed by the Local Authority as bodies play no part in planning law!
Great grandfather Edward Plaw ,served and lived there in the late 1800 .Grandmother and sibling born there .Aunts and uncles worked and served there. Love RVH ,as children we were not allowed on the grounds except once a year when there was a fete and cricket match .
Superb website. Wonderfully informative. My late wife & I often visited the (now) Royal Victoria Country Park .... & explored the hospital site, taking a lot of photos. She, being a Southampton-born girl, remembered the old hospital building prior to it's demolition. We loved visiting the grounds & always made a point of going to the hospital's cemetery.
Again, my sincere thanks for your wonderful website.
Excellent website. Full of information. Visited Netley Military Hospital during my service in the RAMC.
Hello, Great to see you have information about my 3x great grandfather Major General Philip Ravenhill who was the Royal Engineer in charge of the building project. Would be great to attend the opening of the church on the 1st August 2018 with my son, is the ceremony open to the general public and what are the timings?
Hello Julie, My Grandad was the Groundsman and was taken with being in charge of military funerals for the Victoria Hospital. My mother believes he commenced this role just after the war. His name was Charles Whitlock. You may already know this but I just thought it was worth mentioning. Lovely website. Thank you!
I came to your site through researching 'Bitterne Grove' house, and the Hoyes Family. What a fabulous site it is! So interesting and so much information. Thank you.
Hi i have just come across this site and have found it very interesting. I found out that my Great Grandad died at Netley Hospital on the 11th December 1899. His name is Frederick Gibson and his death certificate states he died in “lunatic hospital” Netley, cause of death mania 2 months 26 days, exhaustion. He was 25 years of age and left a wife and two young children one of which was my Grandmother. I would love to be able to find out more about him, as my Grandmother was only 2 years old when he died no one has any memories of him to pass on. It’s very sad I would love to be able to learn more. Hope you can help. Thanks so much.
We have just had a day at the park very interesting. Especially the graves..
I am looking for any mention of my Grandfather, John Windebank, born 1846. Retired from the Hampshire Regiment and working at Netley Hospital during WW2 . I am not sure what he did, but think it was to do with the security network
Hi, i have been looking at your lovely website. It is very informative. I have not found anything about a John William Croysdale (or variant spelling). He died I believe on 10th October 1913, he appears on the army Soldiers Effects Register. He was serving with the 1st Bat Sherwood Foresters. Private 10882. I cant find a death registered for him either, so I am wondering if this is correct.
He is the brother of a soldier i am writing up for our local WW1 remembrance blog, so it would be interesting to find out more. Any suggestions would be most useful. Thank you
Hi - my name is Patrick Ferry. I am a member of the Berwick / Pakenham Historical Society in Victoria. To mark the 100th anniversary of the Armistice we are researching Pakenham's WWI volunteers, including Francis Bertram Doyle (SERN 4165) who is buried at Netley Military Cemetery. We are hoping you can provide us with a copy of his grave so we can include it in a publication we are preparing. We would acknowledge you as the source. Kind regards Patrick
We corresponded about my grandfathers grave a few years ago and yiu were instrumental in our getting the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to replace tge damaged family headstone with one of theirs. I enjoyed your site then and am looking to see how it has developed in the past few years
Thank you for posting some info. on James Morrison from Dundee, he was an older soldier (d. aged 42) and left 9 surviving children of 13, the youngest 2 years sold when he died. Grace was from Leeds and raised all their children d. aged 91. Still looking for his photograph!
Lived in Netley 1952 to 1967. Had school sports on the now cricket field and Christmas carol service in chapel (Butlocks Heath Primary school. Use park a lot for walks
Hi,
I'm researching Moss Side Military Hospital in Maghull. In the Committee minutes book it states that one of their first patients was admitted on 9th Jan 1915 but he was too violent for them to handle and he was transferred to Netley on 11th January 1915. Just wondered if there was any possible way of tracing who this man may have been? Have any patient records survived? If so, might it be possible to trace other men who moved between Maghull and Netley? Thanks for your wonderful website!
My grandfather Thomas WW1, 21st London Rifles, was critically injured at Ypres and was admitted to Netley Hospital for an extended time as an inpatient. I'd love to access his medical records.
Great site, excellent job of keeping the history, memories and achievemnets of those who passed through the Royal Victoria Hospital, and those who sadly came to rest at Netly cemetry.
Great Job
Thank you.
Dean Hollands, Local Historian and battlefield guide.
Very interesting site, to find out where my dad was in 1948
What can I say that hasn't already been said.
What an interesting site.
Well done, and keep up the good work.
My nan worked in the kitchens
one of the ovens blew up and she lost all of her hair (it grew back all grey) , i was told that an old uncle Tom painted the inside of the chapel roof gold.
he came back from the boer war, my grandad was in the hospital as a patient he was in the royal hampshires , hecame back from jallabad,his name is Percy Pressley, my great grand father was in the Hussars
John Conner who came from Sligo,was stationed at victoria hospital.I remember going to the hospital to sing carols ,i went to butlocks heath school.
Looking to see if there is any photos of nurses my nan was there as a nurse may morrissey
REF: Major James Fearnley STEWART.
Row 14 Grave No. 11 SECTION C. (St. Mary the Virgin Church, Hound. Netley)
In Loving Memory of Major James Fearnley Stewart lat 14th Murrays JAT Lancers died at Netley 5 May 1907 aged 44
Dear Sir
I am attempting to find out out more information regarding My Great Grandfather, Sir Jon Dennis Macdonald.
I was wondering if you could help steer me in the right direction.
Your sincerely
Mr A J Macdonald
On Twitter this morning I saw two photo's of the 637(?) WWI CWG graves. They included the grave of an unknown German soldier and the information that 69(?) German soldiers are buried at Netley.
I knew Netley was a big military hospital dating from Victorian times so that such a large number of soldiers dying there of the effect of wounds sustained did not surprise me. However, I was intrigued by two things.
Firstly, that 10% of the graves were of enemy soldiers. Secondly, that even though it was at the end of the evacuation chain wounded got there and died there without anyone knowing who they were.
So my curiosity piqued I googled away and came across your excellent site. Where I have spent far longer than I anticipated.
I am trying to trace LCPL Frank Quilter's (MFP) grave. He ws buried in Netley Cemetary on 21 July 1901 having died of his wounds sustained from the 2nd Anglo-Boer War.
My paternal Grandfather -
Frederick Samuel Slater -
was a patient there cOct 1915 - Jan 1916.
He received a bullet wound to his right temple at the Battle of Loos. He survived until 1942, having suffered a life of epileptic fits and head pain.
I'm still in the process of writing up his story.
I have been researching the history of my 3rd cousin Hilda Ellen Hulf. Hulf was also my maiden name, and I would love to know which of the three Sisters is Hilda . Hilda was born in 1917, she trained as a nurse in London and in 1939 joined the Q.A.I.M.N.S. R. Hilda was stationed in Malaya in 1941. In 1942 Hilda together with other nurses, women and children fled to the docks in Singapore to escape the Japanese forces, who had rapidly invaded the whole country. The Japanese continued to bomb and machine gun every body and anybody, wounding and killing people as they tried to board rescue ships. Hilda and colleagues boarded the S.S. Kuala and sailed to Pom Pong Island 0n Friday the 13th of February where the ship docked . The ship was bombed on the 14th when it sank and all passengers had to swim or get into a life boat to reach the island. Hilda suffered a haemopytsis from bomb blast and was taken to relative safety from. the island with other injured passengers to Sumatra.
I was stationed at RVH from 1959 to 1961 when took my RMN exam and moved as Staff Sgt to Chepstow and again from 1968 when I was commissioned until I retired in 1974
I happened to find your site while searching for information on my great uncle, Frank Mahan Wakefield. I found a medal of his and was very excited to see the gravestone photo and your information.
Dear Sir,
I have been scanning many family photographs which my older brother lent me. During the process I found several which my late father had annotated. Some of these show groups of soldiers from Ward 2 at Netley sometime during 1916. The family connection with these photos is my Uncle Reg who was my Aunt Nancy's husband (Dad's sister). He is one of the soldiers in the photos, which were postcard size and have a short message on the back to my late Aunt. If you would like scanned copies of these I would be happy to send them via email.
We are researching the men on our church war memorial, and I was delighted to find your photo of the grave of G.E.C.Maynard who died at Netley. Thank you for all your hard work!
Hello,
I have been doing some research on my Great Uncle William Henry Baynes who was a 2nd lieutenant of the 1st battalion Queens Royal West Surreys Regiment and discovered he was taken to and died at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, Southampton. I was interested in your site for information about the hospital during WW1. My Great Uncle was taken to his home town of Canterbury for his burial. I found your site very interesting. Thank you.
What an amazing record! It is all so fascinating and the research involved must have been quite incredible.
I was very interested to read about Ken Skinner's neighbour having a relative who was a sergeant at the bottom gate of the hospital. Could that have been my Grandfather JOHN WINDEBANK? He was a sergeant employed in the security department
What a beautiful site, this must have taken ages to finish & I only wanted to see what the grave of Capt. Frank Leonard NORTHROPP looked like & now I have. Thanks very much.
I believe one of my relatives was buried in one of the first graves to be used in the cemetery.
I love royal Victoria country park. .we are so lucky to have it
Loking for somewhere to pay my respects on ANZAC Day, so am seeking out cemeteries that have Kiwi military graves... Thank you.