In the fourth part of a series, Bryan Rhodes continues to look at some of the men involved with the Stramongate Auxilliary Hospital at Kendal during World War One

The medical staff for Stramongate Auxilliary Hospital were initially provided by the West Lancs Casualty Clearing Hospital, which was later renamed the 34th Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) on its transfer to France.

The 34th CCS admitted over 43,700 casualties between June 1916 and December 1917, carrying out over 5,000 operations during this period.

Dr Howard Somervell, of Kendal, worked as a surgeon in the 34th CCS throughout the war and in quiet periods also developed his artistic skills as a painter with encouragement from official war artist William Rothenstein.

The 34th CCS moved several times during the war, on each occasion moving all their equipment with them. The locations were Grovetown, Peronne, Tincourt, Zuydcote and St.Omer.

After the war, Somervell spent two years doing orthopaedic surgery in Leeds and Liverpool, including a period at Alder Hey with Sir Robert Jones who had been ‘Director of Orthopaedics’ during the war. He then decided he wanted to return to civilian practice and returned to UCH, London, initially as house surgeon and then as house physician.

Somervell had continued to build a reputation as one of the leading rock climbers of his generation and was chosen to join George Mallory and a crack team of mountaineers for the 1922 expedition to climb mount Everest. A brilliant musician, Somervell was able to transcribe some of the unique Tibetan music during the expedition.

In May 1922, climbing with Mallory, Somervell established a new altitude record of over 26,800 feet though the summit remained elusive. He returned for the ill-fated 1924 expedition when he narrowly avoided death after suffering frostbite in the mucous membrane lining of his throat.

Although Somervell was in line for a lucrative career as a London surgeon, his experiences in the war and while travelling in southern India led to a change of direction and he decided to join a mission hospital in Travancore in south India

From 1925 to 1949, Somervell worked at the south Travancore medical mission, which became one of the largest missionary hospitals in the world. He was also an early pioneer of the treatment of leprosy, which until then had been considered incurable.

Somervell became an associate professor of surgery at Vellore Christian Medical College in 1949, a post he would hold until his retirement in 1961. He was awarded an OBE in 1953. On his retirement in 1961 he returned to Westmorland, and was President of the Alpine Club for three years.

In 1924 he was one of 21 recipients of an Olympic gold medal awarded at the Winter VIII Olympiade in Chamonix for achievements in mountaineering. Somervell's work as a doctor in India was officially recognised in 1938 when he was awarded the Kaisar-I-Hind Medal.

Somervell died in Ambleside in 1975 and is buried at Brathay. A teaching hospital at Karakonam, Kerala ( the Dr Somervell Memorial CSI Medical College ) is named in his honour.