Description
Object description
image: Doctors and medical orderlies are treating injured soldiers in an open building with straw on the floor. One
patient, stripped to the waist, is sitting up on a stretcher while a doctor inspects a loosely dressed wound to his head. Next to him a
body lies on a stretcher the face covered in bandages. Behind, a patient is crouching on all fours with his trousers round his ankles,
while a doctor inspects a wound in his lower back. Two other French soldiers stand by with arms in slings.
Physical description
Framed oil painting.
Label
The setting is the 'Shambles' (an old vernacular English term for a slaughter-house), a covered goods yard outside
Dunkirk where wounded soldiers were treated. They were deposited here on arrival from the Front before medical facilities were properly organised to cope with the enormous flood of injured men. Nevinson's first job as a volunteer with the Red Cross was to tend to the dying men. In his autobiography, 'Paint and Prejudice', Nevinson describes his work at the 'Shambles': 'Our doctors took charge, and in five minutes I was nurse, water-carrier, stretcher-bearer, driver, and interpreter. Gradually the shed was cleansed, disinfected and made habitable, and by working all night we managed to dress most of the patients' wounds.'
Label
Doctors and medical orderlies hastily treat the injured soldiers in a makeshift hospital. The setting is the 'Shambles', a goods yard outside Dunkirk, where Nevinson worked as a Red Cross volunteer tending to wounded soldiers. He described the scene in his autobiography, Paint and Prejudice: 'Our doctors took charge, and in five minutes I was nurse, water-carrier, stretcher-bearer, driver, and interpreter. Gradually the shed was cleansed, disinfected and made inhabitable, and by working all night we managed to dress most of the patient's wounds.'
Label
Pacifists in Action
Despite their opposition to war, some pacifists felt compelled to offer some form of humanitarian service. This was particularly true of those from religious backgrounds, such as Quakers, for whom pacifism is a core belief.
The Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) was set up by Quakers in the autumn of 1914 to provide medical care to troops in France and Belgium. The FAU began with 43 personnel, but ended the war with 1,300. They acted as ambulance drivers and medical orderlies under fire near the front line, as well as providing medical care further away from the fighting.
Quakers also ran the Friends War Victims Relief Committee (FWVRC), first established in 1870 and set up in times of war to relieve civilian distress. Members provided assistance in countries including the Netherlands, France, Serbia and Russia.
Label
C R W Nevinson, The Doctor (1916)
C R W Nevinson was one of the best-known British artists of the First World War.
Between October 1914 and January 1915, Nevinson served in France with the Friends Ambulance Unit. His father Henry, a war correspondent and campaigner, had been involved in its creation.
This painting depicts a scene at a hospital called the Shambles in Dunkirk, where Nevinson briefly worked as a medic. He was later to return to France as an official war artist.
Inscription
C.R.W. NEVINSON.
