Royal Army Medical College

Royal Army Medical College
Millbank
Royal Army Medical College
Site information
Type	Military College
Owner	Ministry of Defence
Operator	British Army
Location
Royal Army Medical College Location within Westminster
Coordinates	51°29′25″N0°07′44″W / 51.49039°N 0.12892°W / 51.49039; -0.12892
Site history
Built	1907
Built for	War Office
In use	1907-1999

The Royal Army Medical College (RAMC) was located on a site south of the Tate Gallery (now known as Tate Britain) on Millbank, in Westminster, London, overlooking the River Thames. The college moved from the site in 1999 and the buildings are now occupied by the Chelsea College of Arts. The area around the college including the Tate, former military hospital and other adjacent areas is a conservation area. ^[1] The former college buildings are now listed. ^[2]

History

Ordnance Survey maps of London extract for 1916. This shows clearly the octagonal outline of the former penitentiary surrounding the small site. At the centre is the National Gallery of British Art, afterwards known as the Tate Gallery, and now as Tate Britain, with the college in the south of the site and hospital in the north. Most of the streets remain as at 2012 apart from Bulinga Street, most of which has been built over, and Dundonald Street which has been renamed 'John Islip Street'. There is a 'Census Office' at the rear of the gallery, long since gone.

The site, including that of the Tate Gallery (which opened in 1897), was previously occupied by the Millbank Prison from 1821 to the late 19th century. The college was built by John Henry Townsend and Wilfred Ainslie in Imperial Baroque style. They also designed the adjoining Regimental Officers' Mess and Commandant's House, in French Renaissance style. The buildings were opened by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra on 15 May 1907. A statue of Sir James McGrigor, the father of army medicine, originally at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea was moved to the grounds in 1907 and then moved again to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 2000. ^[3]

Queen Alexandra Military Hospital was built to the north of the Tate Gallery and opened in 1905. Sir Cooper Perry was knighted in 1903 for helping set up the college. ^[4]

During the First World War the college was used to prepare vaccines, including a vaccine against typhoid which was developed at the college. The college also researched into protection against chemical warfare including the development of gas masks here. In the Second World War, the college provided courses in tropical medicine. The college was seriously damaged in 1941 by bombs and the walls of the Tate Gallery nearby still show signs of the damage. ^[5]

The Royal Army Medical College was renamed the Royal Defence Medical College on 1 April 1996, offering tri-service post graduate training in a variety of disciplines, including military surgery, medicine, pathology, psychiatry, preventative medicine, entomology, general practice and dental sciences. ^[6]

After teaching transferred to the Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport in 1999, ^[6] the college was removed to Fort Blockhouse. The former buildings on Millbank were subsequently occupied by the Chelsea College of Arts. ^[7]

Commandants of the Royal Army Medical College

Source: ^[8]

(Dates in parentheses are years of service)

• Colonel H. E. R. James (1902–1908)
• Colonel D. Wardrop (1908–1911)
• Colonel Edmund John Erskine Risk LM MCRS LCRP (b.1858 d.1926) (1911–1912)
• Major-General Bruce Morland Skinner CB CMG MVO (1912–14)
• Major-General Sir David Bruce KCB, FRS, ^[9] (1914–1919) ^[10]
• Major-General S. Guise Moores (1919–1920)
• Colonel H. A. Hinge (1920–1922)
• Colonel C. B. Martin (1922–1924)
• Major-General C. W. Mainprise (1924–1925)
• Colonel Henry Edward Manning Douglas VC (1925–1929)
• Colonel John Southey Bostock CBE (1929–1930) ^[11]
• Major-General Sir Ralph Bignell Ainsworth Kt, CB, DSO, OBE (1930–1935) ^[12]
• Major-General William Porter MacArthur KCB (1935–1938) ^[13]
• Major-General William Brooke Purdon (1938–1940) ^[14]
• Major-General Francis Stephen Irvine (1940–1946) ^[15]
• Major-General E. B. Marsh (1946–1948)
• Major-General John Dowse CB CBE MC (1948–1949)
• Major-General J. M. Macfie (1949–1950)
• Major-General F. R. H. Mollan (1950–1953)
• Major-General F. C. Hilton-Sergeant (1953–1957)
• Major-General W. D. Hughes (1957–1960)
• Major-General Sir William Robert MacFarlane Drew (1960–1963) ^[16]
• Major-General Ambrose Neponucene Trelawney Meneces (1963–1966) ^[17]
• Major-General John Mackenzie Matheson (1969–1971) ^[18]
• Major-General James Baird (1971–1973) ^[19]
• Major-General Simon Gavourin (1973–1977)
• Major-General Alan Reay (1977–1979) ^[20]
• Major-General Robert Noel Evans (1979–1981)
• Major-General Joseph Porter Crowdy CB (1981–1984)
• Major-General Patrick Crawford (1989–1993) ^[21]
• Major-General George Osborne Cowan (1993–1996) ^[6]

References

1. Millbank Conservation Area – Westminster City Council, January 2005, accessed 6 August 2012
2. Southern Block Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1066501)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 7 August 2014.
   Officers Mess and Commandants House Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1376570)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 7 August 2014.
   Statue Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1066502)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 7 August 2014.
   Former barracks (1) Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1376572)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 7 August 2014.
   Former barracks (2) Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1376571)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 7 August 2014.
3. "Statue of Sir James Robert McGrigor B. G., M. D. at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst". British listed buildings. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
4. Eason, H. L. (2004). "Perry, Sir (Edwin) Cooper (1856–1938)" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35486 . Retrieved 5 August 2012.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
5. "History of 45 Millbank" . Retrieved 6 August 2012.
6. "Royal Defence Medical College". QARANC. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
7. "History (Official)". Chelsea.arts.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 3 August 2007. Retrieved 21 May 2009.
8. Hughes, W. D. (1 January 1961). "The V.C. Room". BMJ Military Health. 107 (1): 33–34. doi:10.1136/jramc-107-01-11 (inactive 12 July 2025). ISSN   2633-3767.
9. b., J. R. (1932). "Sir David Bruce. 1855–1931". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society . 1: 79–85. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1932.0017.
10. S R Christophers: 'Bruce, Sir David (1855–1931)' (rev. Helen J Power), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2008, accessed 23 May 2014
11. British Medical Journal (BMJ), 23 August 1930, 2(3633):page307, accessed 23 May 2014
12. "AINSWORTH, Major-General Sir Ralph Bignell". Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014; online edn, April 2014. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
13. "MACARTHUR, Sir William Porter (1884–1964), Lieutenant General". Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. King's College London. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
14. "Notes and reports re administration of the Royal Army Medical College during the Second World War, provided by Colonel F.S. Irvine for a medical history of the war". Wellcome Library. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
15. Group, British Medical Journal Publishing (1 June 1946). ""Guest Night"". BMJ Military Health. 86 (6): 233–235. doi:10.1136/jramc-86-06-01 (inactive 12 July 2025). ISSN   2633-3767.{{cite journal}}: |last= has generic name (help)
16. "Sir William Robert MacFarlane Drew". Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
17. "Ambrose Neponucene Trelawney Meneces". Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 22 March 2021.
18. British Medical Journal Publishing Group (19 February 2004). "John Mackenzie Matheson" . The BMJ. 328 (7437): 467. doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7437.467-f. ISSN   0959-8138. S2CID   72914878.
19. "BAIRD, Sir James (Parlane) (born 1915), Lieutenant General". Survey of the Papers of Senior UK Defence Personnel, 1900–1975. King's College London – Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
20. "Lieutenant General Sir Alan Reay KBE FRCP Edin". Obituaries. Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 11 July 2013. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
21. "Major-General Patrick Crawford: distinguished Army physician". The Times . 8 April 2009. Archived from the original on 3 March 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2014.