Royal Pavilion - First World War

First World War

During the First World War, the Pavilion, along with other sites in Brighton, was transformed into a military hospital. From November 1914 to early 1916, recovering soldiers from the Imperial Indian Army were stationed there - the adjacent Dome (now a theatre) was equipped with an operating room and more beds. The Pavilion was partly used in imperial efforts to convince potential Indian recruits that their wounded countrymen were being well treated: a series of photographs was produced, with the official sanction of the state, showing the resplendent rooms converted into hospital wards (few pictures were taken of the local workhouse, renamed the Kitchener Indian Hospital, now Brighton General Hospital, which housed the majority of wounded troops). The soldiers also received visits from Lord Kitchener in July 1915,and King George V in August of the same year who presented several soldiers with military honours. In 1916, the Indian Soldiers were moved on from Brighton after their redeployment in the Middle East. By that stage, roughly 14,000 wounded Indian servicemen had passed through the town's hospitals. After that point, the Pavilion continued to be used as a hospital for wounded British soldiers until the end of the war in 1918.