Keighley War Hospital Register

Please note:
As of Wednesday 24th February 2021, we have been inundated with volunteers and are in the process of responding to them all but we cannot cope with any more, thank you.

All of the pages have been allocated for transcription now and we will shortly be moving to stage two which is an independent proof reading of all the transcriptions comparing them with the original page images, to make sure nothing has been missed or mistranscribed.

We would like to thank everyone who has come forward.

We invited people to take part in the transcription of this important archive. We had photographed all the pages of the register and we hoped that volunteers would take up the challenge of copying the entries into spreadsheets for us.

Keighley War Hospital Register, sample page, showing several entries.

A copy of the digital version will be lodged with Keighley Library to complement the original register and hopefully reduce the need to keep handling the pages. It will also make it possible to search using a computer and produce instant results about the soldiers recorded in it.

Sample spreadsheet page filled in with details from the register.

In January 2021 we invited people to come forward to help with the project and have been contacted by a large number of willing volunteers all keen to help, which is wonderful.
With their consent we have included their names here, with our grateful thanks for their invaluable help in carrying out the transcription work for us:

Leisl Beckles
Karen Benoy
Simon Benoy
Rob Browning
Marlene Downey
Margaret Draycott
Su Freaney
Sophie Haire
Andrea Hetherington
Jane McLean

Anne Miller
Andy Murray
Julie Narey
Joy Peden
David Petyt
Barbara Reed
Cath Rhodes
Lucy Rhodes
David Rigby
John Ryan

Jane Smith
Kimberley Taylor
Allen Wales
Ally Walker
Karen Walker
Stephen Walton
Pen Wilson
Janie Whitehall
Paul Woodwiss

Keighley War Hospital at Morton Banks was originally The Morton Banks Fever Hospital and after local funds were raised, extra wards were built to turn it into a War Hospital. It opened in time to take some of the first casualties from the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 and continued until the end of the war. War casualties had been acepted at Spencer Street Auxiliary War Hospital since Thursday 6th May 1915 although the available records are sketchy on the number of patients treated.

The War Hospital Register archived at Keighley Library contains 13,214 names of servicemen who were treated there. It also contains the names of German prisoners of war who were being held locally and required treatment from time to time, notably from the influenza epidemic.

The register is available to view at Keighley Local Studies Library in archive box BK39.

4 Responses

  1. Maxine Charlesworth
    I am wondering if the Morton Bank Isolation Hospital also housed the Basque children who came to Keighley in 1938-39. If so, is there any record of who lived in the hospital at that ime? Five or six years ago, my husband and I went to Keighley with my father who was born in 1925 and was one of the Basque children from Bilbao. The children landed in Southampton in May 1937. My father took us through a very modern subdivision to a small laneway that he recognized. Sure enough, there was a shut iron gate covered with ivy, etc and he said that it was the entrance, or one of the entrances, to the “sanitarium” where his colony of Basque children was housed. We did go to the Keighley Library but couldn’t locate any information about the Basque children on our short visit. My father is now 93 and a half and has dementia. I can’t get more information from him but am interested if you could direct me to any sources about this matter. (By the way, my father and the rest of my immediate family reside in Victoria British Columbia but we often travel in England, where I still have family.) Maxine Charlesworth PS. My father’s name at the time was Camilo Casado Martinez. He changed his surname to Charlesworth when he served with the British Army during the Second World War and became a British citizen.)
    29th January 2019
  2. ken perks
    Hello. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to search the WW1 hospital records because i believe my Grandfather spent some time there after being gassed in 1916 or 17. i am 74 years of age and unfortunately there is no one left in the family who could give me any information. If you could help i can give you his name, army No.and regiment. i have no further information. Many thanks for any help and of course i would be willing to pay for any information. Yours Ken Perks
    4th February 2020
  3. Don Farnham
    Hello. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to search the WW1 hospital records because i believe my Grandfather spent some time there after he was wounded in 1917. If you could help i can give you his name, army No.and regiment. Many thanks for any help and of course i would be willing to pay for any information.
    5th April 2020
  4. Andrew Robertshaw
    My grandfather, John Andrew Robertshaw, was in the hospital in September 1917 and I have a family story for you. How can I contribute to your project?
    24th January 2021