East Grinstead - in World War II

In World War II

In 1863, the then cottage hospital, Queen Victoria Hospital, was built on its current site in the 1930s. During the World War II the hospital was developed as a specialist burns unit by Sir Archibald McIndoe. It became world famous for pioneering treatment of RAF and allied aircrew who were badly burned or crushed and required reconstructive plastic surgery. Most famously, it was where the Guinea Pig Club was formed in 1941, as a club which then became a support network for the aircrew and their family members. The club still provides assistance for Guinea Pigs, and meets regularly in East Grinstead. The Duke of Edinburgh is the current President of the club. Queen Victoria Hospital remains at the forefront of specialist care today, and is renowned for its burns treatment facilities and expertise throughout England.

During the War a German bombing run had targeted the town and a bomb hit the Whitehall Cinema where the city’s school children were taking shelter killing 108 and injuring 235. The town was devastated almost everyone in the town knew someone who lost or had a child injured. As such the townspeople became very supportive of the patients at the Queen Victoria Hospital. Even though horribly disfigured often missing limbs, and in the worse cases faces made up of burn tissue the townspeople would go out of their way to make the men feel normal even though they were horribly disfigured. Families invited the men to dinner and girls asked them to go on dates. Patients of the burn units remember the and cherish the charity received by the townspeople of East Grinstead.

In the winter of 2010, Claque Theatre produced the East Grinstead Community Play, which focussed on the bombing of the town in 1943, the work of Archibald McIndoe and his team at the hospital and on the Guinea Pig Club and its members. It was performed by local residents.