The Queen Alexandra Hospital Home is a national charity providing nursing and rehabilitation to disabled veterans. Established in 1919, QAHH has a rich and interesting history providing ongoing care to the Servicemen who sustained serious injuries and disabilities during the First World War and subsequent conflicts.
In 2013, QAHH uncovered a collection of over 3,000 photographs documenting its heritage back to 1919. A team at QAHH have spent just over a year digitising and preserving the original photographs, as well as creating a series of photo-canvases and a number of resources to take out into the community. The digitised photographs have now been uploaded to an online archive available to view at archive.qahh.org.uk.
The Duchess of York being photographed by a resident, 1928. Reproduced with permission of the Queen Alexandra Hospital Home.
The project documents through photographs, how nursing care and rehabilitation of our country's veterans has changed from 1919 through to the present day. It focuses on the establishment of The Queen Alexandra Hospital Home to care for these men, during the aftermath of the First World War. It documents the makeshift wards fashioned from ballrooms, the wheelchairs the veterans used, the social activities they participated in and the emergence of Occupational Therapy.
The project also explores the royal patronage of The Queen Alexandra Hospital Home, showcasing never-before-seen images of The Queen Alexandra, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
The project was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
