The former British Military Hospital, an Edwardian redbrick building lined with arched verandahs, was built in 1903 to serve the soldiers from the Wellington, Victoria and Murray Barracks. In 1941, the Japanese commandeered the hospital for the same purpose. The British Army vacated the building in 1967. Initially The Royal Naval Hospital occupied a site on Hospital Hill in Wanchai that had been a seaman's infirmary since 1843. The navy purchased the site for the new hospital in 1873, but on returning to Hong Kong after World War II. found the installations were too badly damaged to reoccupy. They relocated to what was then known as the War Memorial Hospital on Mount Kellett.