A project including prints and paintings by Sally Beaumont based on photographs taken by her grandfather, Capt. J.W. Beaumont R.A.V.C., Commanding Officer of the Base Veterinary Hospital, Makina, Basra 1917 - 1919, as a tribute to his efforts to make the life of the horse in a barren landscape of Mesopotamia and in wartime more tolerable.
The hospital had an operating theatre, surgical ward and medical ward where cases of pneumonia, pleurisy and tropical fevers were treated. Horses did not escape the Influenza Epidemic which demanded segregation in an isolation ward. Captain Beaumont was a keen sportsman and to alleviate boredom in the troops encouraged Polo and Racing. As a trainer he excelled and introduced Australian mares to improve the local arab stock.
He also set up Basrah Racecourse.
His was the 24th. Mobile Vet. Sec. A.V.C.
The Mesopotamia Campaign was fought with our allies in the British Empire, mainly the Indian Army ( Poona Regiment ) to protect oil interests for the British Navy and newly made airfields.
Captain Beaumont was greatly missed when he left the Base and demobbed back to Britain where he set up a Veterinary Surgery in Lincoln then Louth where he remained to his death in 1962.
