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With medical services becoming essential in France, Lord Derby appealed to the merchants of Liverpool to provide funding for facilities.

Within 24 hours, enough was raised to build the Liverpool Merchants Mobile Hospital. This was a timber, collapsible structure that was shipped to Etaples and set up behind trench lines. It was fully equipped and had space for 200 beds – rising to 250 in an emergency.

Before it made the journey, the building was put up in Sefton Park. People paid to have a look around – providing further funding for the hospital.

It was under the instruction of the British Red Cross Society, but it was funded, built and staffed entirely by Liverpool people – the only UK hospital to be raised by a single city.

The Liverpool Mobile Merchants Mobile Hospital remained in Etaples – moving only once after being hit by a shell – until 1919, having tended to over 18,000 patients.

Location: Sefton Park, Liverpool L17 1AP
Photograph of Liverpool Merchants Mobile Hospital staff in France 1917, courtesy of Ann Clayton
Presented by Caroline Dunlop

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