CRAIGDARROCH MILITARY HOSPITAL A Canadian War Story
As one of many military hospitals operated by the federal government during and after the First World War of 1914-1918, the Dunsmuir house, Craigdarroch Castle, is today a lens through which visitors can learn how Canada cared for its injured and disabled veterans. Research shows that the Castle and the Dunsmuir family played a significant role in a crucial period of Canada’s history.
At the outbreak of the First World War, there were about 8,000,000 people living in Canada. Roughly 600,000 of the country’s men and women joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and about 450,000 of them went overseas. Another 50,000 people in Canada joined British or allied armies. By the end of the war, 60,000 had been killed in action overseas or died from wounds, injury, and disease. Seventy thousand returned to Canada with varying degrees of sickness and disability.
The nature of the disabilities suffered by veterans varied widely. Some disabilities were directly attributable to war service, such as dismemberment, while others suffered from pre-existing ailments exacerbated by war service. Others simply became ill while overseas, for example, through catching tuberculosis or developing cancer. Soldiers who were too badly injured or sick to continue serving in the military were discharged and pensioned. Early on in the War, government officials realized that it was the duty of a grateful nation to continue to care for men after their return to Canada. This duty not only entailed mending a man’s mind and body as completely as possible, but also in assisting him to return to civilian life. Some men would not recover enough to return to their previous trades and professions, and would, therefore require retraining. Some would obviously spend the rest of their lives in hospital. In May 1915, the Government of Canada formed the Military Hospitals Commission (MHC) to do this important work.
The principal organizer and administrator of the Commission’s work was civil servant Ernest Henry Scammell. More than any other person, he could be described as the prime architect of what eventually became Canada’s modern social services.
The Commission’s hospitals were organized by military district. In BC, the army officer commanding Military Hospitals Commission Command (MHCC) was Major (later Col.) James Swan Harvey, grandson of Robert and Joan Dunsmuir.
The Commission was a quasi-military organization that administered hospitals and vocational training for invalided (discharged) officers and enlisted men in Canada. Its responsibility was soon expanded to include the treatment of officers and men on active service in Canada and Bermuda. By 1917, it had 2,800 employees, operated 71 institutions directly, and had patients in 44 other institutions managed by provincial governments or private organizations. Some of the institutions provided general treatment, while others cared for men with special conditions such as tuberculosis, insanity, or nervous disorders. For example, Resthaven Military Convalescent Hospital in Sidney, BC specialized in the treatment of “mild nerve cases.” The Military Hospitals Commission was renamed the Department of Soldiers Civil Reestablishment (DSCR) in 1918.
As the Department of Militia and Defence had completed the bulk of its medical work with returned soldiers, it gradually discharged them from military service and transferred those men requiring further medical treatment and/or vocational retraining to the DSCR. The Militia Department also began transferring hospital buildings back to the DSCR. But so great were the number of invalided soldiers in 1918 that the DSCR struggled to manage them. Where necessary, special arrangements were made with provincial hospitals, but this was not always practical, and civilian hospitals resisted the influx of invalided soldier patients. DSCR officials pressured the Militia Department to accelerate the pace at which they were transferring hospital buildings from the Militia Department to the DSCR. The solution was sometimes new construction. But in Victoria, a large building suitable for renovation as a hospital sat vacant at the time of greatest need: Craigdarroch Castle.
The Castle had been built for the Dunsmuirs, a family that made a considerable contribution to the war effort. When the DSCR considered using Craigdarroch as a hospital, it was owned by Solomon Cameron and his Westholme Lumber Company. He’d won it in a raffle in
