[4] By the start of the 20th century it housed some 951 long-term patients (419 male, 532 women) though this number continued to swell up to the eve of World War I.

An expanding population required more accommodation, and numerous wings and extensions were added in the same locally quarried hard grey sandstone that had the uncomforting appearance of granite.

Between the ominous stone wings were a number of neatly planted interior courtyards whose orchard trees and tidy flower-beds were meticulously maintained by inmates of the asylum.

Pearson’s report also noted that it would now be known as 'Beaufort War Hospital, for the general medical and surgical treatment of sick and wounded soldiers', the name deriving from the patronage of the Duke of Beaufort who owned the land and extensive properties in the city of Bristol.

Contemporary photographs show, however, that the hospital retained some of its pre-war character, and the wards are strewn with large potted plants and ornate furnishings, though little could disguise the hard deal tables, the flagstone floors and the high windows with their cast-iron glazing bars.

Stanley Spencer, the painter who served as a medical orderly in 1915–1916, can be glimpsed in one of these photographs – a diminutive, slightly dishevelled figure in an ill-fitting tunic, surrounded by long avenues of beds, each separated by large, ungainly wooden lockers.

Asylum Superintendent (1904–1924) Dr R. J. Vincent Blachford, became Lieutenant- Colonel RAMC, his horse-drawn cab was replaced with a motor car and he occupied an official apartment in the administrative block.

A group photograph of 1915, taken on the steps of the ivy-clad central block, captures nineteen officers, with the ranks of major and captain, all but one – Jarvis – sporting a rather fierce moustache.

[10] Veterans of World War I had little affection for the military hospitals; many memoirists complained of an inhumanity that seemed to increase with distance from the battlefield.