“had a very rough time of it” …… letters form Harpurhey ….1916

I am looking at a letter sent by Jack Scott to a Mr. J. J. Clayton in January 1916.

So far, a preliminary search for both has revealed nothing, despite knowing that Mr. Clayton lived in Clacton on Sea.

The letter was sent from B7 Ward, Alfred Street Hospital, Harpurhey and carries the post stamp, “Posted by a Wounded Soldier 2nd Western General Hospital, Manchester”.

Now, the hospital was one of the Manchester schools taken over by the military to care for soldiers recovering from wounds.

In all eight had been requisitioned between the outbreak of the war and 1915 as the casualties’ figures rose.*  

Alfred Street School was the forty-second Municipal school to be built for the City, and the foundation stone was laid by Mrs Pankurst in 1904.

It catered for 1,100 students and cost £18, 850. 

In her address Mrs. Pankhurst praised Manchester Education Committee for the way it was “training up it’s future citizens [and was pleased] that the education of the girls was to be equally considered with that of the boys”. **

But the requisitioning of the eight schools resulted in the loss of 3,897 school places, but would create provision for over 1,000 wounded soldiers***

Just what wounds Jack Scott was recovering from is unclear, but he does write that he “had a very rough time of it and never expected to recover [adding I am one of the lucky ones”.

And in the January of 1916, he in an upbeat mood, that he was soon to be released after a set of tests, one of which had already confirmed that “no germs had been found”.

All of which would hasten his return to the Front and here he expressed a wish not “to go to the East again [but] don’t mind France”.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; letter from Jack Scott to  Mr. J. J. Clayton in January 1916, courtesy of David Harrop

*Central High School for Boys and Girls, Whitworth Street, requestioned 1914, Alfred Street , Harpurhey,  Alma Park, Levenshulme, Grange Street, Bradford, Lilly Lane, Moston, Ducie Avenue, Moseley Road, and Heald Place, Andrew Simpson, Manchester Remembering 1914-18, 2017

**New School at Harpurhey, Manchester Guardian, Oct 17th, 1904

*** Margaret Edwin Sparshot, 2nd General General Hospital, Manchester 1914-1919