The Two World Wars

History of healthcare in 1914-18 and 1939-45

LHSA holds a small number of records relating specifically to hospitals and individuals in Edinburgh during the First World War (1914-1918) and the Second World War (1939-1945). Please see the menu above for a list of relevant LHSA collections.  From that list you can follow the links to the individual catalogues to find out more about the records themselves. 

Hospital Management Minutes and Annual Reports over the war years will provide general information on how the wars affected a particular hospital.  Please get in touch for more details if you are looking for administrative information on a hospital not mentioned in the links.

Contact us

Please note that personnel and patient records relating to specific individuals and created within the last 100 years are subject to access restrictions under the terms of the UK Data Protection Act 2018. See here for more information.

Please also note that several hospitals in Edinburgh, listed below, were taken over by the War Office for use as military hospitals.  Any records not listed alongside those hospitals below, including the vast majority of administrative and patient records created during these periods, were transferred to The National Archives at Kew.

First World War Military Hospitals

Edinburgh War Hospital, Bangour (outwith war periods known as Bangour Village Hospital): LHSA holds photographs only.

Seafield War Hospital (formerly Seafield Poorhouse, latterly the Eastern General Hospital): LHSA holds photographs only.

Second Scottish General Hospital, Craigleith (formerly Craigleith Poorhouse, latterly the Western General Hospital): LHSA holds in-house magazine, the Craigleith Hospital Chronicle, only.  More detail, and an online 'page turner' is available to view here.

Second World War Military Hospitals

Bangour Emergency Hospital (built during Second World War, later known as Bangour General Hospital): LHSA holds Surgical Neurology and Plastic Surgery patient case notes only.

Bangour Village Hospital: LHSA hold photographs only.

East Fortune (patients transferred to Bangour).

Edinburgh War Hospital, Bangour (outwith war periods known as Bangour Village Hospital).

Gogarburn: LHSA holds patient case notes only.

  Group portrait