This story begins with the unusually named Almeric Paget Massage Corps. Located in the United Kingdom, the Corps was formed to serve in the First World War. It was the forerunner of physiotherapy services for wounded servicemen; and its’ success significantly boosted the profession by raising practitioner numbers, and their expertise, status and confidence. Sadly, the woman behind this extraordinary initiative is nearly forgotten.

The Pagets

The named founder of the Corps was Almeric Hugh Paget. He was born in London in 1861, the sixth son of Lord Alfred Paget and Cecilia Wyndham. Despite his illustrious lineage (grandson of the Marquess of Anglesey) it was fairly clear he was going to have to make his own way. At sixteen he dropped out of school and sailed for America where he established a cattle ranch and later worked in real estate in Minnesota, before relocating to New York.

While America held plenty of business opportunities for ambitious Englishmen, it also had plenty of heiresses whose new money could help shore up sagging aristocratic family coffers. In November 1895, Paget married socialite and heiress Pauline Payne Whitney, the daughter of William Collins Whitney, a financier and political leader, and his wife Flora Payne Whitney. Pauline had inherited the best qualities of both her parents. Attractive, intelligent and sociable, she was known in New York and Washington, as well as Bar Harbor – a popular Gilded Age seaside resort. Prior to her social debut newspapers noted Pauline was already well travelled, an excellent linguist, talented musician, accomplished horsewoman and an enthusiastic tennis player. Pauline’s name regularly appeared in the social columns, which took particular note of her elegant costumes and general popularity.

The wedding was a major social event, attended by President Grover Cleveland, his wife, and members of the wealthy Astor, Vanderbilt and Waldorf families. Newspapers of the day breathlessly recounted every last detail of the wedding from the clothes, to the music, food, the wedding breakfast and a minute-by-minute description of the service.

In 1901 the couple moved to England, ostensibly for Pauline’s health. She had suffered diptheria in 1894 and never fully recovered. England was closer to the European spas and travelling to milder climes in the winter, like their villa in Cannes or as far as Egypt, would be easier.

First World War

Within two weeks of the commencement of the war in 1914, the London Evening Standard reported that a Massage Corps instituted by Mr and Mrs Almeric Paget had been recognised by the War Office and the Red Cross Society. No doubt Almeric Paget’s position as a Member of Parliament for Cambridge (1910 to 1917) gave him access to the appropriate authorities. It also likely helped that the Corps’ honourable secretary, masseuse-gymnast Eleanor Essex French, was the daughter of Field-Marshal Sir John French, commander of the British army in Europe. But the most likely reason for the government’s immediate support of this novel initiative was that the Pagets would cover the entire cost.

The Pagets are reported to have been aware of the benefits of massage used successfully in the recent Servian War. However their motivations were likely closer to home. Pauline’s own health had benefited from massage through her frequent visits to the French spa town of Aix-les-Baines, and other European spa towns. She also held strong socialist beliefs. Back in the United States she was singled out in an 1894 newspaper article that decried the tendency of certain young ladies of wealth to hold socialist, almost anarchist leanings. The article noted not only did she feel wealth was unequally distributed, she was also an ardent believer in Women’s Suffrage. Perhaps her support of massage, performed primarily by disenfranchised and under-employed women, helped her marry her many interests. Whilst the Corps was named after her husband, it is noted that Mrs Paget is afforded equal credit as a founder, suggesting that she was strongly involved.

The Pagets initially funded 50 fully trained masseuses to be sited in the principal Military Hospitals in the UK, beginning in early September 1914. As the flow of casualties turned to a flood, staff numbers were quickly increased to over 100, with increased funding from the Pagets. From November 1914, at the request of the War Office, a Massage and Electrical Outpatient Clinic operated from 55 Portland Place, London, again financed by the Pagets. This facility was the parent of future “mechano-therapeutic” departments attached to subsequent soldier convalescent camps and command depots, that later informed the layout of hospital physiotherapy departments.

Recruitment to the Corps required that members had to have the certificate of training issued by the forerunner of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists – the Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses (ISTM) – and the Society’s council encouraged its members to join the Massage Corps. Two of the three Corps’ executive were ISTM members, including Essex French.

In the early stages of the Corps, many of those recruited worked as volunteers, with an allowance given for the uniform but payment of £2 per week, funded by the Pagets, was made in some instances.

In March 1915, Sir Alfred Keogh, the Director-General of the Army Medical Service, inspected the clinic at Portland Place and announced that the Corps would, in future, be funded by the War Office and be renamed the Almeric Paget Military Massage Corps. Based in its current headquarters, the Pagets’ London home, the Corps would take over the running and organisation of all massage departments at military hospitals, command depots and convalescent camps in the UK.

By mid 1915, around 150 masseuses were working for the Corps in 110 military hospitals and institutions. The first Army funded massage unit in a convalescent camp was at Eastbourne, and was called Summerdown. Further units followed in Dartford in June 1915 and Epsom in July 1915. Pauline took a strong interest in the women of the Corp and the services they provided to the wounded soldiers. She visited Summerdown regularly, helping organise the women there. In the fall of 1916, newspapers announced that Pauline would be renting Claremont House, a neoclassical residence owned by the Royal family in Surrey (recently vacated by the Duchess of Albany). Closer to Summerdown Camp than their residence in Hertfordshire, it allowed Pauline to spend more time helping. She soon became know as the ‘Angel of Summerdown’ for her leadership of the Corps at the convalescent camp.

Women in the Corps were easily distinguishable from women in the regular Nursing Service. They wore a simple uniform with the badge of the Corps on their left arm, whilst the presence of red bars on the shoulders denoted seniority. The treatment they gave was a mix of massage and electrical stimulation. It was not a job for the weak as the hours were long and duties physically arduous with each masseuse serving up to 40 or more patients a day.

In November 1915, there were several reports in British newspapers about the work of the Corps to encourage further recruitment. A short article in the London Evening Standard on 22 November 1915 drew attention to the work of the Corps with the War Office stating:

…no woman can hope to do more valuable work on behalf of the wounded soldier than a masseuse attached to that corps and it is sincerely hoped that a sufficient number of recruits will be forthcoming to cope with future developments”.

By this point, there were over 700 masseuses working in military hospitals and the main convalescent camps. Some newspapers went into more detail about the work of the Corps,

At an Almeric Paget institute in a convalescent camp, the work is almost visibly curative. A man may come in on crutches and walk out unsupported within a few days. A considerable number of treatments can be administered simultaneously, and every patient is having something done to him. It might be a score of operating theatres rolled into one, but without anaesthetics and practically without pain. Some of the men are partially buried beneath big mounds. These are being submitted to radiant heat, and the mounds are ‘ovens’. From several parts of the room comes buzzing of vibrators and batteries and here massage is being applied. Skilled hands move deftly, firmly and apparently tirelessly. Watching this varied and buzzing activity a sergeant was moved to observe ‘If Kaiser Bill saw it he would say the British Army is being tortured to make it go to the front”.

Only members of the Corps would be employed in military hospitals and an advisory committee advised on standards, training and qualifications. The aims were to prevent staff without adequate training from working in the Corps, and to protect the interests of patients and of the fast-growing profession. This prompted a sharp reaction from those organisations not on the list, as well as the ISTM. The ISTM’s advisory committee met in early December 1915. One medical member, Grainger Stewart, said

the difficulty had arisen through the [War Office] handing the whole thing over to the Pagets. So long as it was a private corps, they could do as they liked but when it became the means by which all massage in the UK was done; it was a question for the nation.”

His comments reflected a general theme: by this time, the scale of the conflict was such that the enthusiasm and resources of volunteers were no longer enough to fight the war. Major reorganisation was needed to provide services on a national, coordinated scale.

Demand for the Corps continued to grow, and from 1916, it employed men blinded on war service who had trained for the ISTM certificate at the new charity of St Dunstan’s. A second, lower grade of staff with less training was created to meet the overwhelming demand, on the understanding that this was for the duration of the war only.

By January 1917, 1,200 masseuses and masseurs were employed, including 56 masseuses abroad in Italy and France. By the end of the war in 1918 there were 2,000 masseuses in the Corps.

Legacy

In February 1918, the king and queen visited the London clinic opened by the Pagets and a month later, the king saw the corps again as he toured command depots. The Corps’ Honourable Secretary Essex French was awarded the OBE, and Almeric Paget was elevated to the peerage as Baron Queenborough.

Nearly eight million men came home from the War permanently disabled. New charities for medical treatment and rehabilitation were formed and physiotherapy progressed. A permanent peacetime massage and therapy service for the armed forces and disabled ex-servicemen was clearly needed.

In January 1919, the Corps was wound up and its members invited to join its replacement, the Military Massage Service. Although increasingly subject to medical hierarchy, the massage profession gained professional confidence and assertiveness. They became authorities in rehabilitation and physical treatment, and asserted their unique expertise in this territory.

The masseuses of the Paget Corp created a lasting impression on their patients. In a letter to the Times newspaper in January 1921, an ex-serviceman rebuked a magistrate who had said no self-respecting man would consent to be massaged by a woman, and no respectable young woman would massage a man.

It is a deliberate insult which will be keenly felt by the ladies of the Almeric Paget Massage Corps, who have voluntarily, for years now, been doing their duty in the most unselfish and unsparing fashion. I write this in order that these ladies may still be assured of the gratitude and respect of many a disabled soldier.”

Sadly Pauline Paget never saw what she had helped create. She had died in November, 1916, aged 41, following three weeks of illness. A group of wounded soldiers served as pallbearers at her funeral in Hertfordshire in recognition of her service to the war effort.

Pauline had bequeathed her fortune equally amongst her two daughters and they carried on the funding of the Corps for the remainder of the war providing further evidence, that despite Almeric’s name being used extensively, Pauline Paget herself was physiotherapy’s primary benefactor.

Just prior to her death Pauline had established a massage department at the Miller General Hospital, in Greenwich, London, named the Almeric Paget Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Department. Upon her passing gold and silver medal prizes for staff were named after Pauline, and in 1947 the Pauline Paget Ward was opened. In need of expensive modernisation, the hospital was closed in 1974 and most of the buildings subsequently demolished, bringing to an end any recognition of Pauline’s contribution to the physiotherapy profession.

References

Cox, T. (2018). Massages: Uniformed masseuses. Herts at War website. Accessed online at http://www.hertsatwar.co.uk/archive/great-war-articles/massages-uniformed-masseuses/.

Hanson, C. (2017). My favourite heiress: The perils of Pauline Payne Whitney. Schoolfield Country House website. Accessed online at https://www.schoolfieldcountryhouse.com/journal/2017/6/7/my-favorite-heiresses-the-perils-of-pauline-payne-whitney-paget

Harris, C. (2014). Foreign fields – physiotherapy’s links to the First World War. Chartered Society of Physiotherapy website.  Accessed online at https://www.csp.org.uk/frontline/article/foreign-fields-physiotherapys-links-first-world-war.

Kempshall, C. (undated) The Angel of Summerdown. East Sussex World War I Project website.  Accessed online at http://www.eastsussexww1.org.uk/angel-summerdown/index.html.

Nias, K. (2018). Negotiating Intimacies: Gender, Rehabilitation and the Professionalisation of Massage in Britain, c.1880-1920. University of Exeter (United Kingdom) ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 13911696. Accessed online at https://www.proquest.com/openview/63678b7244d4bbf945099a3fb34259e3/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=51922&diss=y

Stewart, J. (undated). An unusual Corps name: the Almeric Paget Massage Corps. Western Front Association website. Accessed online at https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/an-unusual-corps-name-the-almeric-paget-massage-corps/.