MILITARY MEDICS AND HOSPITALS

Before the 1850s, British Army medical services were organised on a regimental basis. Each regiment would have its own medical officer, and there would be male orderlies who staffed the regimental hospitals. The earliest records of British Army nurses begin in around 1820, although it is not until the later Victorian period that more detailed records of nursing were kept.

To give you an idea of the numbers involved, during the First World