Early in 1918 the War Office, seeing that the Richmond Military Hospital was almost entirely filled with South African patients, proposed to the Committee that the South African and the Richmond hospitals should be amalgamated, the combined hospitals to be known as the South African Military Hospital. The Committee readily agreed, and the two hospitals were completely amalgamated on July 1, 1918. The enlarged hospital provided 1,098 beds; but even this was not sufficient, and 250 emergency beds were added by billeting patients in the neighbourhood. In addition, four auxiliary hospitals were attached, bringing the total number of beds to 1,321, or, including billets, 1,571. The Park section of the combined hospitals stood on an enclosed site of about twelve acres, the actual area of the building being about two and one-third acres. The construction throughout was of timber with felt and weather-board linings on the outside, and asbestos board-sheeting on the inside of the walls and ceilings of all wards and principal rooms. A special feature of this section was the bath ward, with six fire-clay continuous baths for the treatment of patients suffering from severe wounds. The Grove Road extension was a brick building, and consisted for the most part of modern infirmary wards supplemented by additional wards in old buildings. The equipment of the Park section was entirely provided by the Committee, while that of the Grove Road section was found by the Board of Guardians and the War Office, and was only where necessary supplemented by the Committee. Towards the end of 1916 the Committee offered the privilege of naming a bed in the hospital to any persons or institutions making a gift of £25, and of naming a ward for a donation of £600. The appeal resulted in 99 beds and 8 wards being thus named, approximately 265 of the beds being the gifts of schools in South Africa, the organization for these being initiated and carried out by Mr. Maskew Miller of Cape Town. The principal corridors and rooms in the hospital were named after well-known streets or places in South Africa, all the principal towns in the Union being represented. The result of this, and of placing the tablets over the beds, was that familiar names greeted the South African visitor—a happy idea on the part of the Committee, and one which was much appreciated by the sick and wounded of the contingent. The Committee expended approximately £45,000 on building the hospital and its extensions, and £19,000 on equipment. The former figure, however, includes a sum of approximately £2,000 expended in erecting a concert hall and certain workshops, while the latter figure includes considerable sums spent on replacements. That the money was well spent is shown by the fact that the hospital was always regarded as one of the model war hospitals in the United Kingdom.