The History of the Plymouth Ambulance Service 1910 -1939

The ambulance service in Plymouth was founded in 1910 by a group of teenagers who had belonged to a first aid class held at the George Street Baptist Church (now the Catherine Street Church). They entitled it 'The George Street Ambulance Corps' - with the appropriate motto 'Prepared to Help'. There were rooms at the Church where treatment was given and members awaited calls to accidents and the transport of patients.

At first, this was carried out on a stretcher donated by Mrs Miller - mother of the founder; Hedley Miller, and later by a two-wheeled canvas covered handcart form of vehicle which was presented to the Corps by the Church in 1913. By this means, invalids were not only transported across Plymouth and it's districts, but often much further afield, being manned at all times by the three Miller brothers - Hedley, Wilfred and Walter (pictured right). For example: A woman who had sailed from Africa to Plymouth and, having found she was suffering from a terminal illness, decided that she wanted to die in her native Ireland.

She was therefore taken aboard another ship in this hand-propelled 'litter' and sailed to Tyrone in Ulster. Once there, the ambulancemen wheeled her through the streets,
and when nearing her village home they even had to negotiate a peat bog before arriving at her house.

Plymouth's first motor ambulance (pictured left) was constructed locally in 1918 and a second ambulance was obtained in 1919. In 1921 premises in Notte Street, on the site of the Catherine Street Baptist Church were converted into the ambulance headquarters and the Corps became known as the 'Plymouth & District Ambulance Service. The Service doubled in size by 1928 and soon there were sub-stations in Union Place, Stonehouse and in the grounds of the Royal Albert Hospital in Park Avenue, Devonport.

As the City grew in size, studies were carried out in favour of the development of the Service. Stables at Pounds House (now the Peverell Park Doctor's Surgery) was considered as a new HQ site. Eventually, the site of the old prison at Greenbank was decided upon - being adjacent to, what were then, the Police and Fire Brigade HQs and also in close proximity to the main hospitals.

The city council gave the site free of charge and building works were funded by charitable donations. In 1935 the Uks most modern ambulance HQ and station was opened and named 'The J.H.Beckly Memorial Ambulance Station' - a fitting tribute to a devoted and long-standing City Council Chairman. In addition to garaging for eight ambulances, an engineering workshop and quarters for Officers and Staff, there was also a treatment room for casualties and a rescue station created.

During the first year at the Greenbank premises, ambulance staff responded to 26,698 emergencies, invalid and outpatient removals. At emergencies, particularly fires, sea and cliff rescues and industrial accidents, the use of resuscitation equipment, personal breathing apparatus, specialist stretchers and rescue equipment was invaluable in saving lives.

Very little memorabilia of these early pioneers remains today. However, the only known remaining cap badge of The George Street Ambulance Corps was donated to the British Ambulance Society's Museum in 2002 by Medic Air European's Operations Manager.