To 'take their place among the productive members of society': Vocational rehabilitation of WWI wounded at Erskine

Abstract

In 1916, the foundation of the Princess Louise Scottish Hospital for Limbless Sailors and Soldiers (still in existence today as Erskine), on the banks of the River Clyde in Scotland, was a direct response to the need for specialised medical facilities to deal with the unprecedented number of injured service personnel returning from the Great War. At the hospital, the West of Scotland medical and industrial communities came together to mend broken bodies with prosthetic technology, as well as physical and mental rehabilitation to prepare the limbless to re-enter the job market. This paper explores the establishment of manual therapy workshops at Erskine and how such programmes of vocational rehabilitation were culturally informed by the concerns and anxieties of both the military and civilian populations of the First World War-era.