The BAPRAS Collection and The Guinea Pig Club

15^th July 2022

The BAPRAS Collection team have recently visited two important museums to meet with their Collection teams and explore areas of shared interest in our material. At the RAF Museum, Hendon, we were invited into their archive store to see some pieces that are not on public display.

The original operating table which was used by McIndoe at East Grinstead, as displayed at the East Grinstead Museum; and the index cards from RAF Hendon.

These included pilot’s letters and log books from both sides in World War II. We were shown an extraordinary box of index cards recording contact details for members of the Guinea Pig Club, dating back to WW2. These cards would have been used by the RAF benevolent fund to support veterans and their families.
The Guinea Pig Club is a topic represented in both our collections, it is also central to the collection of the East Grinstead Museum, which we visited in May. The Museum preserves and makes accessible the Collection from the former Queen Victoria Hospital Museum. It records the founding of the hospital through to the establishment of the plastic surgery and burns centre in WW II, and is displayed in a way to engage all.

The Guinea Pig Club is the name adopted by WWII aircrew themselves who, having suffered horrific burns, frostbite and other injuries, drew upon extraordinary reserves in order to survive. They recognised the importance of the procedures being rapidly developed at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead , or “the sty”, as the airmen called it. They were treated under the care of the team put together by Sir Archibald McIndoe. As well as developing new techniques to manage, heal and reconstruct significant burns, McIndoe was an early and vigorous advocate of pastoral care contributing towards the complete rehabilitation of his patients. Often referred to as ‘The town that didn‘t stare’, the people of East Grinstead embraced these men, integrating them into the community and facilitated the somewhat raucous social life which sustained them psychologically during many months of often novel reconstructive surgery. Of the more than 600 “Pigs”, only four or five remain with us.
Whilst much remains at the East Grinstead Town Museum, the BAPRAS Collection has some material relating to The Guinea Pig Club, most of which is in connection with former BAPS president Mr John N Barron, who had a significant interest in McIndoe and the Guinea Pigs, delivering the McIndoe lecture in 1982 entitled ‘McIndoe- the Gentle Giant.

Featured is a letter to Barron from the ‘Chief Guinea Pig’ congratulating him on the successful lecture;

If you would like to see more images from the Collection or read some of articles in the Archive then please email collection@bapras.org.uk, or visit the BAPRAS office on 4^th floor in College.

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