One of the most important functions of the Macaulay Plains during WWI was to serve as a training base for the Canadian Medical Corps, No. 5 General Hospital, known locally as the BC Base Hospital.
In July 1915, 73 nurses from all parts of the province, including “twenty three from this city, many of whom are graduates of the city’s leading hospitals, namely, the Jubilee and St. Josephs” arrived for training. A number of prominent local doctors had also volunteered “sacrificing their local practices in order to be of service to the Empire.”2
The initial organization of the establishment had begun in early June by Lieut. Col. E.C. Hart. In a very short space of time he completed this undertaking, and enlisted a total of 35 officers, the majority of whom were practising physicians and surgeons of British Columbia. In addition were the nurses, who “have offered to go to the front to assist in caring for the wounded and are on the roll, and 200 rank and file have been recruited.”3
Mobilized under canvas at Macaulay Plains, the group trained for about seven weeks in all branches of first aid work and in military discipline. The Daily Colonist commented that: “The mere enumeration of what has been accomplished gives the outsider no proper conception of the amount of work done, or of the executive ability required to dispose of the innumerable details satisfactorily.
The corps is now in shape to leave and that everything should have been so thoroughly done in such a short period reflects the highest credit on Col. Hart and his staff.”4
by Catherine Gilbert