The North of England was never short of volunteers and conscripts serving the Colours during the 1st World War from 1914 to 1916. The heavy casualties sustained in the trenches of Belguim and France proved too great in numbers for hospitals in East Lancashire to cope with. It was this desperate shortage which led to the founding of five East Lancashire Homes as temporary hospitals for disabled Sailors and Soldiers, so that wounded men from the North could be near their relatives. The casualties from the Somme, Mons, Ypres, Passchendaele and other battles were young men in their teens and early twenties.
	East Lancashire Home for Sailors and Soldiers latterly renamed Broughton House was opened in 1916 in Park Lane, Salford with the arrival of Private Fox and nine other patients. The home had an operating theatre, a part time doctor, a matron and four Red Cross nurses. As the war ended the other Military Hospitals were phased out. Broughton House remained as a registered charity
In 1916 the Earl of Derby launched an appeal through districts surrounding Manchester in order to establish these military hospitals for the wounded that needed constant attention and special care. The East Lancashire Red Cross, led by Colonel Sir William Coates, provided the medical staff.