Medicine in Uniform: An Oral History of the Royal Army Medical Corps

Jonathan Krause (Oxford) & Fi Bowler (Oxford) 

19 October | 16:00-17:30 | Seminar Room 00.063, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities

An Oral History of the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a project which seeks to document the history of the RAMC from 1945 to its amalgamation with the Royal Army Dental Corps and Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps to form the Royal Army Medical Service in 2024. This talk considers the history of the project and the complexities of oral history methodology and practice, documenting the project’s aims and objectives and our experience of conducting the first cohort of interviews. In particular, it considers the challenges and opportunities presented by interviewing former members of the RAMC about their experiences of military service, medical practice, and life in the British Army across the post-war period. We also relate some of the project’s early findings, covering histories of the Northern Irish Troubles, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and humanitarian and peacekeeping missions conducted by the British Army during the 1990s. These early interviews demonstrate the breadth of experiences encompassed by the RAMC’s history, from frontline medical care and military deployments to humanitarian work and the changing nature of medical practice within the British Army. The talk will consider how oral testimony can provide new insights into these histories, while also reflecting on questions of memory, subjectivity, and the practice of oral history.  

Dr Jonathan Krause and Dr Fiona Bowler are Research Associates at the Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology, where they work on the oral history archive of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Dr Krause’s principal research expertise is in France and the French Empire in the First World War. Dr Bowler is an oral history specialist with a particular interest in the post-war British military.