Royal East Sussex Hospital

Following the grant of funding to the tune of £20,000 by Mr F. D. Harding, the manager of the London and County Bank, the Hospital was able to re-locate from its site on the sea-front opposite the pier to a larger site in Bohemia Road.^[1]

WW2 Bombing[edit]

Twenty-three year old Dorothy Kate Gardner was working as a nurse in a private ward on the 7th of April, 1941 when an Air Raid alert sounded. She was attempting to move all of the patients under her care to shelter, when she heard a bomb falling. Dorothy threw herself over the patient to shield them from harm^[2]. The bomb hit the balcony outside the ward, bringing down the roof^[3] and Dorothy sustained severe head injuries, but her actions saved the patient from harm^[2]. As a result of this act, she was awarded the George Cross. Dorothy (originally from Dorking), whose sister, Margaret, was also badly injured in a bombing the previous year emigrated to southern India to work as a nurse-evangelist with the Zenana Missionary Society in 1949^[3]. The medal she was awarded is now in Hastings Museum^[4]. The 'Gardner' surgical ward at the Conquest Hospital remembers Dorothy's act of bravery.