THE August start to the First World War in 1914 was handy timing for the school holidays – particularly as one group of Barrow pupils were looking for a new home.

Cambridge Street School was chosen for conversion into a military hospital.

Its role was described by Richard Preston in a talk about wartime nursing to a conference at the Shap Wells Hotel organised by the Cumbrian branch of the Western Front Association.

Barrow’s education committee was prepared to offer six schools as potential military hospitals, he said.

An article in the North Western Daily Mail on August 26 in 1914 noted: “We are informed that the Cambridge Street School has been turned into a hospital.

“The Kohi Noor Baden Powell Scouts have been asked to find sentries, day and night, to stop noisy traffic, hawkers and children climbing on the railings to see the beds.”

Pupils from Cambridge Street were distributed among nearby schools.

The former Barrow workhouse at Roose became a military hospital run by the Royal Army Medical Corps.

It became a civilian hospital after the war and was demolished in the 1990s to make way for a housing estate. Auxiliary hospitals were set up all over Cumbria to cope with the wounded soldiers brought from the south coast by ambulance trains.

The hospitals were staff largely by volunteers drawn from the ranks of the St John Ambulance, the Red Cross and people with some first-aid or nursing training from what were called Voluntary Aid Detachments.

Demand for beds grew rapidly after the Battle of Le Cateau on August 26 in 1914.

The Carlisle workhouse at Fusehill became a hospital with 560 beds.

Hospitals needed to be close to the railway and to have access to local doctors.

The government gave two shillings (10p) a day per patients – the rest of care costs had to be found by fundraising.

By 1918 the government raised its contribution to 3/6 (16p).

He said: “All sorts of things were done to raise money.”

In Carlisle, £1,000 was raised to pay for ambulance fuel.

People also gave eggs, cigarettes, vegetables or even magazines to the hospitals – and loaned furniture from their homes.

He said: “There was a constant arrival of gifts.”

There were also public appeals around the county to buy and equip ambulances to send overseas to help battlefield casualties.

Barrow, Penrith and Kendal were among places to raise funds in this way. Other places in the county to establish auxiliary hospitals included Windermere, Kendal, Ulverston, Gosforth and Drigg.

The number of available beds for casualties in the county grew from 71 in 1914 to 932 by 1918.

A total of 11,607 people were treated in county auxiliary hospitals by the end of the war.

By the end of May 1919 the need for the extra county hospital beds was deemed to be over by the authorities.

He said: “The hospitals closed very quickly, often with one or two days’ notice.”