Medical dates:

Medical character:

The 104th (Artists' Rifles) Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.)  was founded in January 1911 with 62 full- and part-time members. It was mainly composed of the wives, relatives and friends of the recruits in the Artists' Rifles Territorial Force (T.F.) unit.

It had originally been intended that the Detachment would nurse wounded TF soldiers in field hospitals but, at the outbreak of war in 1914, the T.F. was integrated with the regular army.  The London/104 V.A.D. offered instead to equip and staff an auxiliary military hospital.  The War Office accepted the offer.

The Artists' Rifles Convalescent Hospital for Officers opened on 28th April 1915 in a house in Lyndhurst Gardens offered  to the War Office in February of that year by Mr William Willett of Sloane Square.  It was designated a Class A hospital and had 23 beds (later increased to 32).  The nursing staff consisted of one trained nurse, and 13 full-time and 5 part-time members of the V.A.D.  There were no male orderlies nor resident medical staff.

The Hospital remained open throughout the war except for three weeks in February 1917, when it was closed for cleaning.

By the time it finally closed, on 31st May 1919, some 947 patients had been treated at the Hospital, very few of whom had actually belonged to the Artists' Rifles (perhaps only two).

The Commandant of the Hospital, Miss A.S. Goodall, received an M.B.E.
 

Present status (December 2010)

The building was listed as Grade II in 1998.  It has been converted into private apartments.